After ongoing NASA road tours, numerous workshops, webinars and the mandated NASA goal of 1 percent to increase awareness and awards in the area of government contracts for Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority serving Institutions, we still are not where we need to be.
We are not only NOT meeting the goal, but these institutions are not aggressively pursuing government contracts. Some institutions say that the agencies are not providing enough opportunities for them to win these awards. While I agree … and disagree … with these statements, the truth is these agencies want to ensure that if they were to put a requirement out that was focused on awards solely to Minority Serving Institutions (called “sole” source or set aside) there would be enough responsive and responsible universities.
Two requirements in awarding government contracts are that the offeror (institution) must be responsive and responsible. You cannot receive a government contract without understanding that you must respond appropriately to the requirement, and you must also show responsibility.
What does that mean? It means you must:
Have adequate financial resources to perform the contractor or the ability to obtain them
Be able to comply with the proposed delivery or performance schedule
Have a satisfactory performance record
Have a satisfactory record of integrity and business ethics
Have the necessary organization, experience, accounting, and operational controls, and technical skills, or the ability to obtain them
The aforementioned requirements are a necessity for success in the area of government contracts. However, most MSIs struggle with the last requirement.
They have neither the necessary organizational structure nor experience to be able to handle government contracts. MSIs also find it hard to invest in hiring personnel or consultants to fill this void. It is particularly hard to spend financial resources when these institutions do not understand how they will get a return on their investment.
Financial investment is what separates colleges/universities from businesses. Businesses understand that committing money or capital to an endeavor is what is needed to obtain additional income or profit. Warren Buffet defines investing as “the process of laying out money to receive more money in the future.”
Until MSIs make a strong commitment to put up the investment, I believe that becoming a responsible source as it is defined above will be extremely difficult to fulfill the government requirements.
In order for MSIs to diversify their revenue portfolio by including government contracts, they must first “put their money where their mouth is.” In other words, MSIs must show through their actions, especially financial investments, that they can be a responsible source to solve governmental issues.
Once they make the investment, then the work truly begins. Sir Winston Churchill is known to have said, “The price of greatness is responsibility. “ One of my first blogs posed the question, “if you knew you had access to $190 million, what would you do to get it?”
Latonia Jones is the chief executive officer of Phenomenal Management Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in creating and implementing business development strategies for academic institutions that conduct research and development for federal government agencies.
