[weilandia]

We see this quite a lot. Even worse is the maneuvering that can take place to make something look cheaper. This can happen when the government is procuring a complex list of things and trying to do so with one vendor. While the individual pieces can be much cheaper through multiple vendors, those vendors are not eligible to bid because they cannot fulfill the entire request.

We're trying to circumvent this with our collaboration tools--Allowing multiple companies to work together on a single bid.

[MattGaiser]

You could just become the contractor there and arbitrage :)

[corty]

That business model is already taken, most larger contracts are won that way. Somebody founds a special-purpose company for that exact contract, gets bids of their own on the subcontracts and then submits an offer. After the project is paid, money is split up, company founder gets an appropriate share.

However, this is also the usual way that the government and subcontractors taken advantage of in bidding processes: Submitting company wins, collects payments, pays founders, but doesn't pay subcontractors, doesn't perform all of the contract, hires unreliable subcontractors and when shit hits the fan just goes bankrupt. That is why there usually is a "good standing" requirement in the call for bids that excludes new, small or government-contract-inexperienced companies. Or puts liabilities on the subcontractors, who of course don't like that.

[jscheel]

Amazon Basics for government contracting

[MattGaiser]

Given what I’ve seen on it comes to government of Canada chair procurement, this seems like it would be a needed niche.

[mikeweiland]

That is a great tag line and I completely agree.

[nostrademons]

Depends whether they view the market size as fixed (where you'd want to capture as much of the surplus as possible through arbitrage) or as expanding (where they'd want to bring new firms into the marketplace that don't currently exist).

Normally government spending is about as fixed of a market size as exists, but with the recent expansion in government spending and the political winds blowing the way they are, this may be one of those rare moments in history where a platform play in government makes sense.