Market research: the collateral damage of conference restrictions.

• Author: Goodman, Will
• Position: Homeland Security News: COMMENTARY - Conference news

* When it comes to making purchases, most customers shop online or in a big box store, where they can visit a single location and figure out all of the options along the price and value spectrum at once.

The time and money saved makes this convenience seem almost essential. It's why every neighborhood in America has a supermarket but few still have a butcher or baker. Most consumers prefer shopping venues that make it easy to do market research. These environments present multiple products that compete for our purchase by trying to provide the greatest value at the lowest cost.

Unsurprisingly, the same proves true for government purchasing. In an October report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) explained that market research improves competition outcomes the more thorough the market research, the better the outcomes. To quote GAO, "market research on the higher dollar value contracts generally involved more communication with industry and these contracts were more often awarded on a competitive basis."

More market research means more discussions with industry, which means more competition, which means lower costs and greater value. Prodding requirements writers in government to talk to industry early and often can mean huge program savings.

And not only does market research yield good outcomes, it's the law. Section 3306 of Title 41 of U.S. Code requires market research as a preliminary activity for any acquisition, a requirement reinforced by provisions related to commercial item preference in Section 2377 of Title 10 and Section 3307 of Title 41.

With good substantive reasons to do market research along with a legal mandate, one might assume that market research is on the rise--but that is not the case. According to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), "The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) authorizes a broad range of opportunities for vendor communication, but agencies often do not take full advantage of these existing flexibilities."

This statement was made in OFPP's 2011 "Mythbusting" memo intended to address the federal workforce's misconceptions about vendor engagement. Finding the problem unresolved by its first memo, OFPP published a second memo, the very first recommendation of which was better and more thorough collaboration with vendors at conferences.

OFPP issued that second memo in May 2012, a scant few months before the Department of Veterans Affairs conference scandal broke followed by the General...