Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/507045
P PROCUREmENT www.vanguardcanada.com aPRIL/May 2015 19 What is also different is that we are broadening who we are engaging with. In the past there was often a larger focus on the bidders; now we are trying to understand the full landscape of Canadian capabilities. That means that the voice of SMEs, of other Canadian suppliers that may not bid but might be part of a team that bids, or have an interest in being part of a solution that is acquired, that we understand and hear that voice early on in the process. And that could help shape how we proceed with a procurement and it will certainly shape how we structure the value proposition. Q This requires a much deeper dive into the defence land- scape than would have been done in the past? Yes. While we have always had a relatively good understanding of the defence landscape, it was not procurement specific. Now, through proactive and early engagement and analysis of Cana- dian capabilities, we have a much more complete picture of the defence sector and how best to leverage the ITB policy. Q The services have well defined process for capability gap identification and options analysis. At what point are you now trying to engage with industry? Is it before Treasury Board approves funding? We have seen through many procurements that while DND un- derstands the capability that they need, industry can often pro- pose a way of achieving that solution that we, as a government, have not considered, so we'd like to engage as early as makes sense. By engaging with industry well in advance of the procure- ment through solicitations of information on buyandsell.gc.ca and through industry engagement events such as industry days, companies will be better able to prepare strong bid packages and will have more time to engage with the Regional Development Agencies and create stronger supply chain opportunities for Ca- nadian-based companies. For certain procurements it would be feasible for us to engage prior to Treasury Board approval. Again, it is trying to get a sense of the art of the possible before you get to final approvals in terms of how you want to move forward on a procurement. It really depends on what you are procuring and the timelines for when you need to procure it. Q If you now have a deeper knowledge base, do you also have a greater "match making" role, advising SMEs and OEMs of possible connections they might not have picked up on? The "match-making" role is important and Industry Canada works in strong partnership with the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), which are key partners in highlighting where Canadian capabilities exist. The RDAs play an integral matchmak- ing role, linking Canadian-based suppliers with prime contractors, setting up networking opportunities and keeping industry in their regions aware of what is going. A tool from the IRB policy which we will retain is: companies had to develop "regional plans" as well as SME plans to demonstrate that they had sought out solutions from across the country to sup- port the acquisition. In that process, the RDAs play an important role coordinating and working with the potential bidders to under- stand what Canadian solutions could support their bid. On top of that, we have a much stronger incentive in a sense; we now have a rated criteria for supplier development. So we do expect to have an even stronger role than in the past in terms of match making. Q Are the RDAs engaged in a different way as well? Just as Industry Canada has a much bigger role than we used to in and throughout the procurement process, I've seen the RDAs step up, recognizing the greater impact of the new policy. We now have a stronger tool to incent high-quality outcomes and now a number of regional agencies are starting to align some of their programming to support the defence sector. Western Economic Diversification, for example, has the defence sector as one of its priority areas. The RDAs have and will continue to have an im- portant role in the evaluation of bids, evaluating the quality of the value propositions that come in. That role in the past used to be a pass/fail, which was easier than the rated system we are moving to. All the agencies have embraced this and see the potential to support the defence sector in their own regions. Q This strategy is anchored on six pretty broad key industrial capabilities (KICs) identified by the Jenkins panel. How will you apply them? These six areas are broad in scope and most companies can see them- selves on the list. That was the point. When Canada has a capability in an area directly related to a procurement, companies should have an opportunity to participate in that procurement. That's our first and foremost objective. However, there are cases where leveraging a direct participation in a procurement may not be the best leveraging outcome. A case in point would be a product that is nearing the end of its production cycle and doesn't have a strong Canadian supply chain. In that case, you may want to support indirect benefits under the policy, but making sure those indirect benefits are of high qual- ity. Before, we did not have as strong a tool to do that. Decisions on capabilities will always be informed by industry en- gagement, in depth research and analysis and expert third-party ad- vice as required. We have already begun this approach in practice. On a procurement-by-procurement basis, we mine our extensive data holdings – which includes subscriptions to commercial sources of data and market intelligence – to produce snapshots on where Canada has a capability with a significant export opportunity, where Canada does not have a capability in areas of significant export op- portunity, and how prime contractors are positioning themselves globally and what part of the value chain Canada occupies.