Drawing on our consulting experience, in one case an agency began market research with a very small solution set. The approach was altogether too typical: Take the last RFP, update it, and buy basically the same thing again. This would have resulted in the agency's expressing its need in terms of the state of the marketplace that had existed in the original competition many years previously. The agency would have issued a "facilities management" work description instead of a description and approach more typical of the marketplace today: true outsourcing, with performance-based partnering. After conducting meaningful market research, the range of possible approaches and solutions increased dramatically, and the agency adopted a significantly more beneficial approach to solving the requirement.

In another case, the very nature of the acquisition changed: from an IT support services contract to a performance-based, loan-servicing contract. The agency went to a completely different segment of the marketplace to solve its needs, and it changed completely its approach to contract pricing. It happened this way. The agency was trying to develop incentive provisions to improve performance of its loan portfolio. During market research, the agency learned that standard (loan-servicing) industry practice is to structure agreements so that the servicing contractors only get paid if the loans are performing. This is a far cry from the transaction-based pricing the agency had with the IT support services contractor... an arrangement that actually paid the contractor more for non-performing loans because so many more transactions (letters, etc.) are required. There was no incentive for the contractor to achieve the agency's intended outcome. In contrast, loan-servicing contractors have a strong contractual incentive to do what it takes to keep the loans performing. It is a win-win arrangement for both, because both are in pursuit of the same outcomes.