Subcontractors & Teaming Partners – Like a Bad Marriage?

Business partnerships are a lot like marriage and some are a lot like a bad marriage. Whether it is Saverin and Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, or Walter and Jesse - many business partnerships end badly. Pick any quote about bad marriages and substitute "teaming partner" and you will discover the statement is just as true…

Examples:

"Marriage (subcontractor relationships) is (are) an exercise in torture."

"Bad marriages (teaming relationships) are easier to begin than they are to end."

We could go on, but the fact is that many teaming or subcontractor and prime relationships in the government contracting space and particularly in the IDIQ environment are less than satisfying - to put it mildly.

Mark Selesky, IDIQ guru and author of The Project Manager's Guide to IDIQ Task Order Contracts, explains that the entire process that is meant to advantage the small business often leads to failure. He describes the potential of the subcontractor to become "poison to the prime's overall obligations and objectives." And notes that at one of the six stages in the life of an IDIQ, "the honeymoon between the prime and the sub is over." From the perspective of the subcontractor he notes that "being a sub on an IDIQ is only slightly better than no contract at all." Sounds very similar to some common complaints about marriage.

Risks/Rewards of a Subcontractor/Prime Partnership on an IDIQ

• The decision to share the pot of what is a future, indefinite, unspecified, and speculative revenue stream is a huge risk. Like partners in a Hollywood bank robbery, the team members may have very different ideas about how the cost and rewards should be divied up.
• While having the right subcontractor with particular expertise may help you, as a Prime, win an award, using the subcontractor too much in their area of specialization may actually hurt your reputation with your client as a capable technical partner.
• Allowing a subcontractor, in a sense, to freeload on an IDIQ actually creates an opportunity for them to gain the experience and skill they need to become a competitor in the same space in the near future.
• Direct contact between the subcontractor and your client can undermine the prime-client relationship and damage your reputation with the Government.
• Worse yet, subcontractors and teaming partners can turn out to be incompetent unresponsive, and genuinely non-contributors resulting in gaps in performance and damage to future past performance.

Consider a Superior Solution

Silesky goes on to suggest that the best solution may be to hire the expertise you need to fill the gaps in your technical competence in a pure outsourced relationship where you get what you pay for and suffer none of the above risks.

Invisibility

The RPO contributes to the success of the contract as a direct member of your team, but an invisible partner as far as the client is concerned. No reputation risk.

Competence

The RPO provides the technical expertise and expanded bandwidth you need for unexpected IDIQ requirements and has demonstrated, not wishful, experience in meeting extraordinary specifications.

Non-Competition

The RPO is not a potential competitor attempting to bolster their own future past performance.

Predictable Costs

The cost of the RPO is clearly quantified prior to execution as a small factor of future revenue so that your cost is completely predictable in advance.

KurzSolutions is the only Recruitment Process Outsourcing firm in the U.S. that specializes in supporting government contractors and IDIQs. With Kurz, you get what you pay for with none of the risks and pitfalls of teaming partners who are actually competitors "disguised" as partners. Call us about an outsourcing relationship today: 888-406-9485

"Learning how to pick the right business partners is the most important business skill you will ever acquire." – Futurist, Serial Entrepeneur, Brady Gilchrist