Twitter Facebook Google RSS
 
National Defense > Blog > Posts > Analysts: Pentagon Could Save $100 Billion by Changing Business Practices

8/10/2012

Analysts: Pentagon Could Save $100 Billion by Changing Business Practices
By Sandra I. Erwin



Only one issue is on the minds of defense leaders and industry executives these days: Looming budget cuts. But widespread panic over the coming spending reductions — known as sequestration — could be turned into an opportunity to tackle the obvious fat in the Pentagon’s budget, analysts suggest.

Based on interviews with 80 defense industry executives, a team of researchers concluded that 25 percent of the cost of what the Pentagon buys is attributed to “transaction” expenses. These include administrative and legal costs, expenses associated with negotiating contracts, monitoring purchases, making changes to documents and resolving disputes.

“Some transaction costs are necessary, but others can be lowered or eliminated,” says a study titled, "Cutting Fat without Cutting Substance,” which was published in the Contract Management industry journal in May.

The Defense Department buys more than $400 billion annually in goods and services from the top 100 suppliers. That is $100 billion a year spent on transaction costs alone.

Studies that identify potential savings from procurement reforms are a dime a dozen in Washington, to be sure. Just in the past year, the House Armed Services Committee, the Lexington Institute and others have released their own estimates of the price of Pentagon red tape. In testimony to the HASC last month, EADS North America CEO Sean O’Keefe said the cost of doing business with the government can add more than 20 percent to the price of goods. “The current regulatory load stunts competition and increases the cost of doing business,” O’Keefe said.

An industry executive who did not want to be quoted by name said the current budget crisis means the Pentagon can no longer afford to sweep these studies under the carpet. Even if acquisition transaction costs were conservatively estimated at 10 percent, that could amount to $40 billion in savings. “The sequestration catastrophe could be averted by cleaning up acquisition inefficiency alone,” he said. “It is crazy to be talking about cutting meat when so much low-hanging fruit exists.”

One of the authors of the “Cutting Fat” study, T. Russell Crook, said many of the Pentagon’s transaction costs could be eliminated rather easily if there were sufficient motivation for people to embrace change. “Inertia is a problem,” he said in an interview.

Crook, an associate professor of management at the College of Business Administration at The University of Tennessee, worked on the study under the auspices of the National Defense Business Institute, a Pentagon-funded organization within UT led by David Patterson, a former Defense Department official.

The 25 percent transaction cost estimate was based on insights provide by industry executives, said Crook. They cited four main cost drivers: Vague requirements, inflexible processes for modifying requirements, unnecessary reporting and compliance requirements and adversarial buyer-supplier relationships.

The executives’ recommendations on how to bring down those costs will sound familiar to most people in the government procurement business:

• Use “relational” contracting, where buyers and suppliers make long-term commitments that bolster trust and cooperation, rather than treating each contract as a one-time event.

• Where appropriate, monitor suppliers’ outcomes rather than their behavior. “The buyer focuses on ‘what’ and allows the supplier to decide ‘how,’” said Crook.

• Use “best value” they way it is done in the private sector, instead of just focusing on cost or speed.

• Retain knowledgeable workers who work with suppliers. “Turnover has the potential to create major performance problems within buyer- supplier relationships,” Crook said.

Crook recognized that it would be unrealistic to expect huge savings from these proposed reforms, given the Pentagons' track record.

Budget experts in recent years have cast doubts on projected "efficiencies" that defense officials promise but never materialize.

“Efficiencies historically have yielded only a small fraction of the projected savings,” Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told reporters. CSBA budget analyst Todd Harrison has said he tends to be suspicious of business reforms that promise big savings.

Retired Army Col. Nathaniel H. Sledge Jr., a former acquisition program manager, questioned whether any reforms could overcome the endemic inefficiency that is built into the defense procurement.

"There’s no real catalyst to force change," he wrote in a recent article in National Defense Magazine, unless the defense budget is cut deeply.

Photo Credit: iStockPhoto
Posted at 10:59 AM by Sandra Erwin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

Comments

Re: Analysts: Pentagon Could Save $100 Billion by Changing Business Practices

The problem with running the Government is that it is not a business. The Government operates very differently from a normal business. Due to human nature, greed and the fact that it is the public money there is more oversight. Sure there are rules that can be changed but we can not let Big business run the Government we can not allow them to run the government in the ground. Businesses can be rebuilded much easier than a Government.
PAT JONES at 8/30/2012 12:52 PM

Add Comment
Items on this list require content approval. Your submission will not appear in public views until approved by someone with proper rights. More information on content approval.

Name: *

eMail *

Comment *

Title

Attachments

Name: *


eMail *


Comment *


 

Refresh
Please enter the text displayed in the image.
The picture contains 6 characters.

Characters *

  

Legal Notice *

NDIA is not responsible for screening, policing, editing, or monitoring your or another user's postings and encourages all of its users to use reasonable discretion and caution in evaluating or reviewing any posting. Moreover, and except as provided below with respect to NDIA's right and ability to delete or remove a posting (or any part thereof), NDIA does not endorse, oppose, or edit any opinion or information provided by you or another user and does not make any representation with respect to, nor does it endorse the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement, or other material displayed, uploaded, or distributed by you or any other user. Nevertheless, NDIA reserves the right to delete or take other action with respect to postings (or parts thereof) that NDIA believes in good faith violate this Legal Notice and/or are potentially harmful or unlawful. If you violate this Legal Notice, NDIA may, in its sole discretion, delete the unacceptable content from your posting, remove or delete the posting in its entirety, issue you a warning, and/or terminate your use of the NDIA site. Moreover, it is a policy of NDIA to take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other applicable intellectual property laws. If you become aware of postings that violate these rules regarding acceptable behavior or content, you may contact NDIA at 703.522.1820.

 

 

Bookmark and Share