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Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

reuters.com

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Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#241

Post by veqq »

patcon wrote: post #233
callamdelaney wrote: post #64

Now the UK should swiftly follow suit in sacking these cowboys. The taxpayer is being charged extortionate rates in some cases for fresh graduates who know effectively nothing at all about what they talk about. At the same time, we should increase salary banding for technical roles to the market rate. We will get the experience we need for much, much less.

> for fresh graduates who know effectively nothing at all about what they talk about Assuming they are akin to grad students, these "fresh graduates" likely have more intersectional knowledge than long-time deep domain experts. I've worked in grant funding landscape, and one of the biggest challenges is that: 1. Experts have deep knowledge, but don't keep up outside their field, and yet have the most power in distrib…

> grad students

No, fresh 22 year olds with bachelor degrees.

> effective institutional ecologies

More so, they act as liability sponges. Leadership can blame them for any problems, poor decisions etc.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#242

Post by varispeed »

heisenbit wrote: post #217

Consultants are misused if employed on a constant basis instead of employing enough senior staff directly. There are well known drivers on both sides that tend to promote such an unhealthy setup. What is concerning at the US government is not cutting consulting but at the same time cutting staff and on top creating a hostile environment for senior staff. This is unprecedented and is not something one would do in the…

"unhealthy" it's simple profiteering.

In the UK that's got especially interesting. When more consultants started quitting these big firms to go independent (offering cheaper services to public sector and often better quality), these corporations lobbied for something called IR35 - basically means if company is worker owned, then it cannot make profit. Now big consultancies have very much a monopoly on making profit from some else's work and charge public sector - tax payer handsomely.

You would think that such setup is ultimately corrupt.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#243

Post by butler14 »

patcon wrote: post #233
callamdelaney wrote: post #64

Now the UK should swiftly follow suit in sacking these cowboys. The taxpayer is being charged extortionate rates in some cases for fresh graduates who know effectively nothing at all about what they talk about. At the same time, we should increase salary banding for technical roles to the market rate. We will get the experience we need for much, much less.

> for fresh graduates who know effectively nothing at all about what they talk about Assuming they are akin to grad students, these "fresh graduates" likely have more intersectional knowledge than long-time deep domain experts. I've worked in grant funding landscape, and one of the biggest challenges is that: 1. Experts have deep knowledge, but don't keep up outside their field, and yet have the most power in distrib…

"but part of the secret sauce of why these big orgs generally operate as effective institutional ecologies"

Nah

the secret sauce is "who you know"

it's a tale as old as time

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#244

Post by QuantumGood »

tw04 wrote: post #229
heisenbit wrote: post #217

Consultants are misused if employed on a constant basis instead of employing enough senior staff directly. There are well known drivers on both sides that tend to promote such an unhealthy setup. What is concerning at the US government is not cutting consulting but at the same time cutting staff and on top creating a hostile environment for senior staff. This is unprecedented and is not something one would do in the…

The ONLY time this occurs in the private sector is when corporate raiders are trying to extract every last penny from a business they plan on killing. Unsurprisingly this follows directly with project 2025s goal of dismantling the federal government and privatizing what departments aren’t filled with party loyalists at the expense of the average US citizen.

96 of 301 projects complete, 58 in progress • https://www.project2025.observer/

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#246

Post by Molitor5901 »

This is going to devastate the DC area. Most of my friends work for one of the big IT contractors. It's a great gig if you can get it, very nice compensation and not a lot of responsibility. The first rule of government contracting has always been why buy something when you can buy it for three times the price. As a result these firms have become quite massive in their size and billings. This is going to cause a major overturn in people living in the DC region, and overall incomes. I would say perhaps, perhaps, it's the equivalent of a very large company leaving Silicon Valley.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#247

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #209
splitrocket wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses." - Major General Smedley Butler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the fi…

I know a lot of people who love to quote Smedley and Eisenhower's farewell address, and to a person they support military intervention in Ukraine. Also, people who unironically were saying "The USA shouldn't be the world police!" 10 years ago.

It's almost like supporting an ally whose sovereign territory is being violated is some kind of different situation than the US unilaterally performing military actions in a variety of locations. Amazing!

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#248

Post by timschmidt »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #239
timschmidt wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone me when someone else lands an orbital class rocket or offers a cheaper ton to LEO. Until then you're complaining about the lowest bidder. And you're going to have a hard time convincing me that the lowest bidder is doing anything but saving their customers money on a service they were already intent on purchasing, and had previously been spending 2x - 10x for: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/753q6s/econ…

I don’t have to convince you. The only people who matter are government decisionmakers who are unwilling to be held hostage by him. It doesn’t matter how good you are if you can’t be trusted. The premium you pay a non SpaceX launch provider is so that the rug isn’t pulled on you. Do you want to go to space when you want? Or only when he says you can? Cheaper is not always better.

Friend, when your argument evaporates in the presence of the financial numbers and you revert to character assassination, you might be identifying yourself among the untrustworthy. Bad faith arguments really undermine any trust I could build for you through this media.

> The premium you pay a non SpaceX launch provider is so that the rug isn’t pulled on you. Cheaper is not always better.

Again, when one of them manages to land an orbital class rocket, call me. Competition would be great.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#249

Post by whimsicalism »

azemetre wrote: post #227
Symbiote wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be no collective bargaining against the democratic will of the people Presumably this also rules out any company or non-profit from negotiating a contract with the government, or suing the state.

No you see only capital is allowed to bargain with the government, labor is not allowed to for "reasons" that somehow always seem to benefit capital at their expense.

workers are allowed to bargain against the government, as in “i will not take the job at the pay you are offering.”

both private companies and workers should not be allowed to band together to deny the government all contracts until they get the one they want.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#250

Post by stackedinserter »

aqme28 wrote: post #55
nxm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of USAID wasteful spending was already cut as well

Which USAID spending? I haven't seen anything that I would say is both wasteful and significant.

It's hard to track, because it's all nice websites with generic messages like "we make life better" and pictures with obligatory diversity faces. E.g. $4.5 billion here chemonics.com. Or $3 billion here devalt.org. Where did these money go? How can we measure the ROI?

USAID is a corrupt wasteful sinkhole, good riddance to it.

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