Reader: Tight budget will increase service quality

Unlike the scenario a General Services Administration blog posts implies, a reader said vendors aren’t going to suddenly provide bad service as the government attempts to curtail its spending this year, particularly on management services.

“To suggest or to predicate a strategy on the presumption [that] contractor performance will deteriorate because of reductions is balderdash,” SPMayor wrote regarding the questions that GSA posted in December. The Acquisitive Mind blogged about the questions at the time.

The blog post on GSA’s Interact website asked about incentives to keep contractors performing good quality work despite the push to spend less money. The post seeks answers on what incentives might motivate companies to keep up their work and whether cost-reimbursement-type contracts would pique contractors' interest in doing quality work.

SPMayor said the questions miss the point. The budget crunch will force businesses to do better work and approach the service support work differently.

“If anything the smaller budget will drive vendors to improve the delivery of services in order to maintain their business base,” the reader wrote. “Both small and large businesses will have some difficult decisions to make concerning their place in the federal marketplace, but poor service is not one of their choices.”

Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Jan 17, 2012 at 1:35 PM