READERSFORUM.

• Position: Letters

Business Difficulties

This is in reference to "Defense Rhetoric at Odds with Business Reality" (Inside Track, July 2000, p.6).

Bregman & Company Inc. is a woman-owned small business. We believe that we are the best environmental consulting firm in the business. We have trouble getting work from the Defense Department for two main reasons:

* The tendency to give work to "big guys."

* The unfair competition (or really the lack of their having to compete) of 8(a) firms.

J.I. Bregman

BETHESDA, MD

Business Reality

Your comments in the article entitled "Defense Rhetoric at Odds with Business Reality" (Inside Track, July 2000, p.6), on "access" to the senior military leadership, ring only too true.

We have to rely on word of mouth in our customer base to improve the situation. Although hiring military retirees may be the answer in some issues, to do that in order to gain access to the core of the government base of operations is counter productive.

To be quite fair, however, it is hard to generalize, and your example may fir, though I prefer better methods.

Both small companies and large companies would like to have one-place shopping, i.e. one place to go to get all the answers and numbers that they need to run their business.

That is not the way the game is played. Strategic intelligence and long-range planning come from knowing the customer, mainly those at the working level where issues are discussed and analyzed, and solutions are recommended. It's nice to be...