Rewrite of market research rules aims to give agencies more flexibility

The Trump administration has released the market research portion of its rewrite of the Federal Acquisition Regulations, this time with a goal of reforming how acquisition officials research solutions and pricing for government contracts.

In the redo of FAR Part 10, the General Services Administration has released what it calls a “Practitioner Album” to help agencies streamline how they conduct market research. The rewrite is part of what the government is calling a "revolutionary FAR overhaul."

Jeffrey Koses, GSA's senior procurement executive, wrote in a Thursday memo and Friday LinkedIn post that the move aims to give acquisition officials greater flexibilities.

“The FAR no longer lists specific market research considerations or techniques that must be used,” he said.

Acquisition teams can pick the method they see as best meeting their needs.

"For example, you might host a reverse industry day or expert panel,” Koses wrote. “This allows industry experts to share their perspectives, commercial practices, and experiences with the acquisition team.”

Competition requirements remain as described in the Competition in Contracting Act.

The Practitioner Album goes into more detail on the class deviation GSA wants agencies to follow.

As with the other FAR reforms released so far, the album includes the marked-out text being removed from Part 10. The FAR overhaul sections released so far have focused on Parts 1, 34 and 54.

Of note in the Part 10 revision: every mention of small business requirements in the current rules is marked for deletion.

The document encourages early communications with industry.

“When early conversations with industry happen, solutions align, proposals improve, awards happen faster, and teams deliver,” GSA writes in the album.

GSA has also created a “procurement co-pilot” to help acquisition teams develop better cost estimates, find companies more quickly and chose the best contract. The tool also will give acquisition teams ways to determine what others have paid for similar work.

The co-pilot is available now through the acquisition gateway.

GSA also is offering “market research as a service” to help acquisition teams plan sources sought notices, vendor sessions, and industry outreach. The MRAS specialists can also help manage vendor responses and market research documentation.

Koses and Larry Allen, GSA’s chief acquisition officer, wrote a section of the Practitioner Album encouraging acquisition teams to use industry days and forms-based requests for information.

The problem with traditional RFIs is in how they generate inconsistent responses that create a burden for acquisition teams, they wrote.

“By contrast, electronic forms-based RFIs standardize information collection in ways that dramatically reduce administrative workload,” Allen and Koses wrote.

Contracting officers can use structured data fields to compare capabilities across vendors more quickly, identify solution patterns and market trends, and focus their analysis on substantive differences rather than formatting variations.

RFIs are often treated as draft solicitations, which they wrote as both a mistake and burden for industry.

“By instead focusing on specific, targeted questions about capabilities and approaches, and specific to the marketplace, agencies reduce the resource burden on potential partners,” they wrote. “Every hour industry spends on overly complex RFIs is ultimately reflected in higher costs to the government.”

GSA wants agencies to start using the Part 10 deviation immediately while formal rulemaking goes forward. They also are asking for informal feedback via this link.