Hacking Acquisition

For decades, one of the Pentagon’s biggest procurement problems has been rapidly purchasing modern and emerging technologies. Through traditional contracting processes under the Federal Acquisition Regulation, procurements could sometimes run years, and large tech acquisitions across defense and military agencies were among the most likely to fail across government.

In recent years, however, the Pentagon has explored new means by which to procure technology: other transaction authorities. Already, the Pentagon has awarded major contracts—in one case, controversially so—in an effort to make use of cutting-edge technology in as few as six weeks.

Over the past decade, government agencies have awarded more than $10 billion in OT contracts, and an expansion of purchasing authorities by Congress in recent years has made OTs even more attractive to defense agencies. In this ebook, we’ve outlined the history of OTs across the government, explored some of the most important contracts thus far and researched how the government is approaching this new contracting model that really isn’t all that new at all.

Download the free ebook here.