Commonly heard issues with federal government contracting (such as, “it takes too long,” “it’s too expensive,” “it’s overly bureaucratic,” or “it’s too burdensome”) often conclude with a determination that the government should adopt commercial acquisition practices.

Government contracting does have considerable regulation associated with it. The government version of “commercial contracting,” found in the Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 12, was an attempt to address this idea and has been somewhat successful. However, additional government-unique requirements have been added over time.

In many cases, a primary hurdle is that a customer can have unique requirements, making that customer the only customer.

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