Contracting Officers execute awards, but it's others in the Department that drive the process along the way. I know that there have been efforts to expand who is considered a part of the "acquisition community," but we need to keep improving.
For example, the requiring office is in the best position to know what they need. When they submit an intentionally vague statement of work, it will take a lot of rework to make it contract-able, and it still won't yield as good a result as a well-defined requirement.
If the technical experts aren't diligent with market research, how can we expand our contractor base beyond the same old Beltway insiders?
If we don't have solid Independent Government Estimates, we start out a step behind with our negotiations. (At some Agencies, they're consistently high, at others, always low.) And if an IGE originated with a vendor, it's hardly independent, isn't it?
The government needs for federal employees involved in procurement (and even if you're not a CO or COTR, you probably help to identify or use the stuff being purchased) to help with the push to make the government more efficient.
