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I've heard requests for proposals (RFPs) in Washington will often be specified so that only a single vendor could meet the requirements. Is that what happened h

I've heard requests for proposals (RFPs) in Washington will often be specified so that only a single vendor could meet the requirements. Is that what happened here, where the Pentagon's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) RFP depended on implementation details of AWS? And to a larger point, can anyone elaborate on whether what I've heard is true? Has litigation or sunlight through advocacy against the government worked in those cases?

thaumasiotes 8y ago
> I've heard requests for proposals (RFPs) in Washington will often be specified so that only a single vendor could meet the requirements. The usual term for this is "single-sourcing", and it applies to much more than vendor selection in RFPs. You can single-source materials, vendors, locations, or anything else, and it's routinely done in legislation.
- bluedino 8y ago
  Employees, in the case of writing job descriptions so that you 'need' an H1B
- bradleyland 8y ago
  Single-sourcing is a procurement strategy, not an outcome of RFP manipulation. When a purchase is put forth, the end-user[1] writes the specifications, and procurement staff[2] determines the procurement strategy. If the end-user can convince procurement staff that only a single provider can meet their needs, then they move forward with a single-source procurement. When a specification is written specifically for a single vendor, it's not called single-source; although the end-user probably advocated for single-source during negotiations with the procurement department. Not surprisingly, this is a constant source of friction for procurement departments. End-users almost always want to buy their preferred solution, and especially in IT. There are often good reasons, but I digress. In some contexts, the single-source procurement strategy is simply not available; usually due to procurement law. This is when you most commonly see manipulation of specification. However, competing vendors can challenge the procurement in court through a procedure usually called a "bid protest". That's not exactly what's happening here, but it's similar. 1: The person who will ultimately use/implement the purchased goods/services. 2: Usually a separate department responsible for ensuring that goods/services are "responsibly" procured.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    > When a specification is written specifically for a single vendor, it's not called single-source ...this isn't accurate. Intentionally writing a specification that only one party can meet is in fact called single-sourcing.
    - bradleyland 8y ago
      Well, yes and no. Yes, when a single-source strategy is adopted, the spec is written for that supplier, but that does not mean that all cases where the spec is written with a specific supplier in mind are single-source bids. Sometimes it's an end-user trying to manipulate a bid so that only one supplier can answer. That's the distinction I'm trying to make.
    - rkeene2 8y ago
      A single-source approach requires a lengthy justification as to why they are the single option. Manipulation of the specifications so that you believe there is only one option does not require this justification because it's not explicit. In fact, it's possible that you are mistaken and another vendor could win the open (not single-source) contract.
lozaning 8y ago
The trick is to find out about the RFP and then write your proposal so that if you win the proposal when they put it out for bid, you're the only person who can win. This happens any time any government entity goes through the RFP>RFQ> process; local schools, city government, municipal water departments, state agencies, the FBI, etc I onced snipped an almost million dollar deal at the department of justice. HP tape guys thought they had the deal zipped up as the spec called for only equipment they could provide. Well they forgot[1] that they oem'ed all their tape hardware and software to the company I worked for and we had no non compete clause in our contract with them. I found the deal on FedBid, under bid them by like 70K with their own hardware that matched the spec 100%, won the deal and took the rest of the month off. Dont even get me started on the dirty tricks that can be done around deal registration. Enterprise IT sales more shady than a used car lot. [1] So they didnt forget as much as the fact that HP Gov sales is an entirely different division than the OEM team with essentially no communication between the two.
- specialist 8y ago
  Thank you. I learned about this working on election integrity. After spending years learning the laws, rules, regulations, principles, policy, tech stack... it really just came down to who's getting paid. I don't know how to mitigate this. More eyeballs? Regulation isn't sufficient and susceptible to capture. Sunshine laws aren't sufficient. FOIA is a step forward, but you're always two steps behind (don't even know what questions to ask). Whistleblowers are routinely stomped, so less likely to speak up over time. Few can afford to do investigative journalism any more. So I was big fan of Obama's data.gov initiative. Publish all (non-sensitive) data by default. Calendars (hearings), procurement process, contracts, appropriations. Wishful thinking?
random_kris 8y ago
lots of public proposals are made in such specified way that only a single company meets the reqs.
sokoloff 8y ago
In fact, many products have language that’s tailor-made to copy/paste into requirements documents to either/both: easily describe in a generic way and confine to the extent possible the selection to this product.
kodz4 8y ago
This is a long answer, but you can skip to the parts about the senate and congresses attempts at reigning things in - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pentagon-budget-mystery-807276/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pent...

thaumasiotes 8y ago

> I've heard requests for proposals (RFPs) in Washington will often be specified so that only a single vendor could meet the requirements. The usual term for this is "single-sourcing", and it applies to much more than vendor selection in RFPs. You can single-source materials, vendors, locations, or anything else, and it's routinely done in legislation.

bluedino 8y ago
Employees, in the case of writing job descriptions so that you 'need' an H1B
bradleyland 8y ago
Single-sourcing is a procurement strategy, not an outcome of RFP manipulation. When a purchase is put forth, the end-user[1] writes the specifications, and procurement staff[2] determines the procurement strategy. If the end-user can convince procurement staff that only a single provider can meet their needs, then they move forward with a single-source procurement. When a specification is written specifically for a single vendor, it's not called single-source; although the end-user probably advocated for single-source during negotiations with the procurement department. Not surprisingly, this is a constant source of friction for procurement departments. End-users almost always want to buy their preferred solution, and especially in IT. There are often good reasons, but I digress. In some contexts, the single-source procurement strategy is simply not available; usually due to procurement law. This is when you most commonly see manipulation of specification. However, competing vendors can challenge the procurement in court through a procedure usually called a "bid protest". That's not exactly what's happening here, but it's similar. 1: The person who will ultimately use/implement the purchased goods/services. 2: Usually a separate department responsible for ensuring that goods/services are "responsibly" procured.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > When a specification is written specifically for a single vendor, it's not called single-source ...this isn't accurate. Intentionally writing a specification that only one party can meet is in fact called single-sourcing.
  - bradleyland 8y ago
    Well, yes and no. Yes, when a single-source strategy is adopted, the spec is written for that supplier, but that does not mean that all cases where the spec is written with a specific supplier in mind are single-source bids. Sometimes it's an end-user trying to manipulate a bid so that only one supplier can answer. That's the distinction I'm trying to make.
  - rkeene2 8y ago
    A single-source approach requires a lengthy justification as to why they are the single option. Manipulation of the specifications so that you believe there is only one option does not require this justification because it's not explicit. In fact, it's possible that you are mistaken and another vendor could win the open (not single-source) contract.

lozaning 8y ago

The trick is to find out about the RFP and then write your proposal so that if you win the proposal when they put it out for bid, you're the only person who can win. This happens any time any government entity goes through the RFP>RFQ> process; local schools, city government, municipal water departments, state agencies, the FBI, etc I onced snipped an almost million dollar deal at the department of justice. HP tape guys thought they had the deal zipped up as the spec called for only equipment they could provide. Well they forgot[1] that they oem'ed all their tape hardware and software to the company I worked for and we had no non compete clause in our contract with them. I found the deal on FedBid, under bid them by like 70K with their own hardware that matched the spec 100%, won the deal and took the rest of the month off. Dont even get me started on the dirty tricks that can be done around deal registration. Enterprise IT sales more shady than a used car lot. [1] So they didnt forget as much as the fact that HP Gov sales is an entirely different division than the OEM team with essentially no communication between the two.

specialist 8y ago
Thank you. I learned about this working on election integrity. After spending years learning the laws, rules, regulations, principles, policy, tech stack... it really just came down to who's getting paid. I don't know how to mitigate this. More eyeballs? Regulation isn't sufficient and susceptible to capture. Sunshine laws aren't sufficient. FOIA is a step forward, but you're always two steps behind (don't even know what questions to ask). Whistleblowers are routinely stomped, so less likely to speak up over time. Few can afford to do investigative journalism any more. So I was big fan of Obama's data.gov initiative. Publish all (non-sensitive) data by default. Calendars (hearings), procurement process, contracts, appropriations. Wishful thinking?

random_kris 8y ago

lots of public proposals are made in such specified way that only a single company meets the reqs.

sokoloff 8y ago

In fact, many products have language that’s tailor-made to copy/paste into requirements documents to either/both: easily describe in a generic way and confine to the extent possible the selection to this product.

kodz4 8y ago

This is a long answer, but you can skip to the parts about the senate and congresses attempts at reigning things in - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pentagon-budget-mystery-807276/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pent...