July 29, 2025
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Former GSA executive, Erv Koehler, offers a practical and thought-provoking take on the federal government’s ongoing struggle with bid protests. Drawing on decades of experience and a deep understanding of acquisition processes, Koehler suggests that improving data, applying the right incentives, and learning from industry can help streamline procurement and reduce costly delays.
Koehler begins with an analogy that resonates across government and industry: the football timeout. He supports the idea introduced by his former GSA colleague Chris Hamm that the protest system resembles a game constantly paused for review. Just like in sports, Koehler believes too many "timeouts" stall progress. But unlike in football, there are few consequences for calling frivolous protests. To solve that, he proposes a measured but firm approach: put some “skin in the game.” If a company files multiple baseless protests, perhaps they should sit out for a period—just like a timeout in a game. This would create a balance, discouraging frivolous claims while preserving the right to raise legitimate concerns.
That balance, Koehler emphasizes, is key. Not all protests are bad. In fact, he points to new data from the Government Accountability Office showing that more than half of protests result in some sort of remedy. That indicates real issues are being raised. However, Koehler cautions that many of the corrective actions are minor and often stem from highly skilled lawyers finding procedural errors rather than systemic problems.
One of the central issues in the protest process, according to Koehler, is pricing. He explains that preparing for a protest and making a price reasonableness determination can be a significant burden on contracting officers. To simplify this, he proposes a formula: take the lower of the current contract price, the protester's price, or the awardee's price during the protest window. This approach reduces complexity, protects the government’s interest, and prevents gamesmanship in pricing.
Data, Koehler says, is a critical part of the long-term solution—not just for protests, but for acquisition as a whole. He reflects on GSA’s progress with the Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) initiative, which captures real-time data about what agencies are buying and at what price. Koehler acknowledges that the early days of TDR were rocky, with poor data quality and inconsistent formats. But today, thanks to years of hard work, the product space has high-quality, actionable data that is now being used to inform pricing and purchasing decisions.
He believes this shift is transformative. With better demand data, agencies can benchmark prices and make smarter choices. It also opens the door for industry to compete on innovation and efficiency. For now, this works best for commodities and products, but Koehler sees a future where services will follow—once standard labor categories and qualifications are well-defined.
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