{"id":49144,"date":"2025-05-20T01:08:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T17:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ic-exploring-how-to-reform-procurement-process-to-expand-opportunities-gabbard-says\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T01:08:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T17:08:35","slug":"ic-exploring-how-to-reform-procurement-process-to-expand-opportunities-gabbard-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ic-exploring-how-to-reform-procurement-process-to-expand-opportunities-gabbard-says\/","title":{"rendered":"IC Exploring How To Reform Procurement Process To Expand Opportunities, Gabbard Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

ST. LOUIS <\/em>\u2014 Mirroring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s priority of opening up the U.S. Department of Defense<\/strong> (DoD) procurement process to find the best solutions, the intelligence community is doing the same, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The goal is to avoid using the same prime contractor \u201cover and over and over again\u201d and instead find the best solutions wherever they come from, Gabbard said at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium.<\/p>\n

Traditional ways of contracting can be too costly and make it difficult for startups and other small businesses to do business with the IC, Gabbard said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we make sure when we\u2019re bringing in a startup, for example, who may just have a simple solution to provide a single source HR contract that can be used across all the IC elements?\u201d she said. \u201cHow do we make sure there\u2019s not another second or third layer of contractors built on top of that to supervise, and then have another layer of supervisors to supervise the supervisors.\u201d<\/p>\n

One challenge is \u201cthere is some internal resistance\u201d to these changes, she said, highlighting the revolving door between industry and government at times as a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where the revolving door can be dangerous, where you\u2019ve got folks who are working in the intelligence community, who\u2019ve made friends with the big prime and they want to get a job as they go out the door, and they\u2019re kind of, you know, seeding the landscape for that,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/p>\n

Gabbard was asked about opportunities for the intelligence community to use more commercial solutions and do so faster. She replied that the IC\u2019s \u201carchaic procurement laws\u201d are an impediment.<\/p>\n

Before her lunch keynote, Gabbard walked the exhibit floor at the symposium and visited with some vendors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve known for a long time,\u201d she said. \u201cSmall businesses often may be the ones who have that capability, because you\u2019re small and you\u2019re agile and nimble and able to get after a problem set, perhaps more quickly than a bigger business or contractor, but you don\u2019t have the ability to get inside the door and make your pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culture change and education within the intelligence community are needed to open doors for these companies, Gabbard said. She added that some personnel are scared that the artificial intelligence-based technologies that some of these small companies are offering will replace them.<\/p>\n

Instead, these employees need to understand that AI will enhance their work, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got some doors to kick down and some barriers to break through, but ultimately, this is the time to do it,\u201d Gabbard said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a president who is interested in delivering solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was first published by Defense Daily<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ST. LOUIS \u2014 Mirroring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s priority of opening up the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) procurement process to find the best solutions, the intelligence community is doing the same, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Monday. The goal is to avoid using the same prime contractor \u201cover and over and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}