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

reuters.com

141–150 of 684 posts

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

#141
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0.61% with just a few contracts

It might be a small percentage of the pentagon’s budget. But it’s still $5.1bn of taxpayer money being reigned in here. It’s $13 per person in the country. You could do an awful lot of good with that kind of money - from space programs to science funding.

> You could do an awful lot of good with that kind of money

Or given to billionaires

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

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No chance. The median consultant is a fresh graduate. The median government office worker actually knows something.

I have met plenty of fresh graduates who know more and are much more productive than older people.

When I worked as a consultant, the majority of the work was done by younger/less tenured/lower-level people.

The skill balance (actual, tangible IT/software skill) was heavily in favor of the "younger" (as above).

Most of the managers/those in supervisory roles were busy "showing impact" and "aligning cross-functional teams".

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we do waste a ton of money on consultants I bet the median skill of a Deloitte consultant is higher than that of the average government office worker.

Usually, they recruit government office workers into this? They acquire domain knowledge in endless drudgery, then get a pay upgrade and get rehired as consultant? The whole machinery becomes a whole level more inefficient. Van der Leyen was famous for squandering german defense budget to mc kinsey and co - who poached heads from the german rearmament office. National Defense related industries should be in general f…

no, in the US consultants are mostly just a backdoor for governments to hire actually competent people at payscales that are illegal for the government to use and with competitive interview processes that are also illegal for the government to use.

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

#144
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your public tax dollars picked Tesla and SpaceX as winners vs losers, through billions of dollars of subsidies.

I'm not a huge fan of Elmo but Telsa get's subsidies that all car manufacturers are eligible for. The fact that those manufacturers have to purchase credits from Tesla is their decision. If they can't delivery a quality ZEV the public wants to buy they have no one else to blame.

[deleted]

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

#145
post #129

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.

Salary banding doesn’t attract the talent you need. Maybe, good enough? E.g. Who would contribute to open source, speak at conferences, write blog articles, go above and beyond to outwardly contribute, only to be grouped with others to make the same? Terrible deal.

You can solve this by either having wide bands or by preferentially promoting those that make extra contributions.

Just increasing the salary band would do a lot to attract more talent, which is a good-not-perfect solution. Last time I checked going to work at a federal job would have cut my total compensation in half, but if it was just a 20% cut I would have looked deeper.

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

#146
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The government could be made hugely more efficient through the use of technology. However, the civil service simply doesn't pay enough to attract the talent it needs. Therefore, we are left with little option but to pay consultants more to deliver these contracts. The total cost to the tax payer is higher; it doesn't make sense! It is reductive to say that we just need to pay more, however. The civil service…

> The government could be made hugely more efficient through the use of technology. However, the civil service simply doesn't pay enough to attract the talent it needs. They should start by disbanding all government employee unions for GSA workers and eliminating all seniority based promotion criteria.

Nothing says freedom like banning the right to strike. Which might work in the short term, but makes the strikes much, much more vicious when they do come.

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

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met plenty of fresh graduates who know more and are much more productive than older people.

When I worked as a consultant, the majority of the work was done by younger/less tenured/lower-level people. The skill balance (actual, tangible IT/software skill) was heavily in favor of the "younger" (as above). Most of the managers/those in supervisory roles were busy "showing impact" and "aligning cross-functional teams".

unlike the other reply, this is a an accurate description of consulting dynamics.

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

#150
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary banding doesn’t attract the talent you need. Maybe, good enough? E.g. Who would contribute to open source, speak at conferences, write blog articles, go above and beyond to outwardly contribute, only to be grouped with others to make the same? Terrible deal.

You can solve this by either having wide bands or by preferentially promoting those that make extra contributions. Just increasing the salary band would do a lot to attract more talent, which is a good-not-perfect solution. Last time I checked going to work at a federal job would have cut my total compensation in half, but if it was just a 20% cut I would have looked deeper.

With that much liberty, there’s no point to the bands in the first place. They become meaningless.
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