Government “Unstuck”: Why Procurement Reform Should Be Measured by Outcomes, Not Faster Process
Federal acquisition reform is often described in terms of speed: shorter solicitations, fewer clauses, faster awards, greater use of commercial products, and more flexible acquisition authorities.
A new OECD report suggests that the more consequential question is not whether government can process procurement faster, but whether procurement is producing better outcomes.
In Government Unstuck: The Next Frontier of Government Transformation, the OECD argues that governments increasingly struggle to adapt and deliver at the pace required by technological change, fiscal constraints, institutional complexity, and rising public expectations. The report was authored by Daniel Gerson, Claire Salama, and Marco Daglio for the OECD Public Governance Directorate.
The report is not specifically about U.S. federal acquisition. But one of its central themes should sound familiar to anyone following current federal procurement reform.
The OECD argues that governments have accumulated layers of rules, procedures, approvals, and institutional structures that individually may have legitimate purposes but collectively can create what the report calls “beige tape”—administrative burdens government imposes on itself. It recommends continually identifying and eliminating internal controls that no longer serve their purpose, while shifting remaining controls toward genuinely higher-risk transactions.
That is remarkably close to the challenge facing U.S. acquisition reform.
The danger, however, is replacing one procedural model with another without changing what government actually measures.
The OECD expressly calls for public procurement to move from a predominantly compliance-driven function toward a strategic one—one connected to national priorities, broader supplier participation, digital procurement, and public value.
For federal contractors, that shift would have significant consequences.
A procurement system focused mainly on procedural compliance asks whether the contractor submitted the correct documents, met the solicitation requirements, complied with clauses, and delivered according to the contract.
A strategic procurement system increasingly asks additional questions: Did the acquisition improve mission performance? Did it introduce useful commercial technology? Did it strengthen the supply base? Did it reduce lifecycle cost? Did it create resilience? Could the solution scale? Did the Government receive measurable value rather than merely contractual compliance?
That favors contractors able to demonstrate outcomes, not simply capabilities.
The same principle appears in the OECD’s discussion of artificial intelligence. Governments should develop internal capacity to direct and supervise AI, while using procurement and partnerships to scale successful pilots and maintaining meaningful human oversight and accountability.
For contractors, this suggests that the strongest future proposal may increasingly connect five things that traditionally have been treated separately: technical solution, measurable mission outcome, implementation pathway, evidence of performance, and scalability.
The OECD also identifies a weakness that deserves particular attention in federal acquisition: governments frequently measure whether reform activities occurred without measuring whether those reforms actually changed outcomes. The report argues for intermediate indicators capable of showing whether transformation improves productivity and how change is experienced by citizens, businesses, and public servants.
That lesson applies directly to acquisition reform.
Reducing procurement lead time is useful. Increasing commercial awards may be useful. Removing clauses may be useful.
But none of those measures alone establishes that the Government bought better.
For contractors, the strategic opportunity is to anticipate that transition. Companies should increasingly build proposals and performance records around evidence of results—cost avoided, time reduced, readiness improved, users served, defects prevented, capacity increased, or mission capability delivered.
The future competitive advantage may not belong merely to the contractor that understands the acquisition process best.
It may belong to the contractor that can most clearly prove why the acquisition produced a better outcome.
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Disclaimer:
This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal or government-contracting advice. Government Unstuck is an OECD comparative public-governance report and does not establish U.S. federal procurement requirements. Contractors should evaluate applicable statutes, regulations, solicitation provisions, contract clauses, and agency-specific guidance when developing acquisition or proposal strategies.