Other Transaction Authorities, commonly known as OTAs, have been in use since the 1950s, but only recently have they become “critical to rapid prototyping in the defense realm,” according to Washington Technology.

Other Transaction Authorities are a business tool allowing procurement through means other than by the Federal Acquisition Regulations; in other words, as defined by Oles Morrison, OTAs describe “streamlined procedures that federal agencies may use to procure innovative research or prototypes.”  Other Transaction Authorities thereby give the Department of Defense and military services a much more efficient acquisition process—saving years of red tape and potential protest—and have drawn much praise and excitement; however, OTAs have also drawn criticism for lacking quality screening and fairness.

Other Transaction Authorities have helped the military accelerate innovation in all sorts of functions, especially in the IT field where the evolution of technology vastly exceeds the pace of a traditional acquisition process using Federal Acquisition Regulations. According to Air Force Director of IT Acquisition Process Development Maj. Gen. Sarah Zabel, some vendors have brought in their ideas and have been given a contract the same day. With the ability to procure needed services as soon as possible rather than services which were needed months or years ago, OTAs have found a lot of popularity in the defense realm for their speed. Additionally, OTAs have proved very useful in engaging small businesses and other non-traditional defense suppliers, diversifying the acquisition portfolio as Department of Defense OTAs must use a non-traditional defense contractor, have all of its participants be small businesses, or have at least a third of its total cost paid by parties other than the government.

Taking advantage of the efficiency, flexibility, and accessibility afforded by Other Transaction Authorities, the Department of Defense’s use of OTAs has grown exponentially from less than $500 million in 2013 to more than $2 billion in 2017. However, Other Transaction Authorities have also received their fair share of criticism.

Strictly speaking, Other Transaction Authorities are not subject to the FAR or DFARS and not subject to procurement statues; they are simply contractual actions. Thus, criticism of both lack of public transparency and proposal integrity weighs heavily, considering the transparency of typical acquisitions. Likewise, the award process draws concern: Just this year, the Government Accountability Office ruled in favor of Oracle America, which argued that a follow-on OTA was made without adequate notice or competition. Therefore, the GAO will review OTA usage, a win for OTA detractors. However, the GAO will only review an agency’s award decision to assess whether the agency was correct in choosing to use an OTA over traditional procurement contract; protesting an agency’s award decision after proper use of OTA is still unprecedented.

Other Transaction Authorities are becoming more widespread, growing as a percentage of defense contract dollars, but going into the future, OTAs will most likely not replace the traditional acquisition process. Traditional acquisitions based on FAR and DFARS have provided many effective services and tools before, and many future services and tools will need to be procured through a process that draws heavily from standardized, well-known regulations. At the same time, OTAs are a tool that can create flexible and fast provision of innovative services. Therefore, federal agencies including the Department of Defense will continue to use both traditional acquisitions and Other Transaction Authorities, for some situations call for quality and transparency while others call for speed and flexibility.

Sources:

https://www.transform.af.mil/Portals/18/documents/OSA/OTA_Brief.pdf?ver=2015-09-15-073050-867https://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition/2017/10/ota-contracts-are-the-new-cool-thing-in-dod-acquisition/

Microsoft is offering a free version of its Teams corporate chat app, available for groups ranging from two to three hundred users. This version is designed for startups and small businesses.

The new version provides 10GB’s of data storage, with extra 2GB’s for each individual user. Microsoft also provides free online versions of Office that allows users to edit flies, documents, slides and spread sheets. Microsoft is trying to lure users who do not want to pay initially, especially small startup businesses, and convert them into paid users’ overtime.

It seems like Microsoft Crop. is giving more attentions to small businesses. “We’re kind of flipping the model on its head,” said Lori Wright, general manager for Microsoft’s Office 365 collaboration apps. “The competition looks at this as a way to get into enterprises and larger business, but that’s a place we’ve been successful for a long time. To us, this is really about expanding the opportunity down to small and medium-sized businesses who haven’t necessarily been Office 365 customers.”

Teams Allows you to communicate with large groups of people instantly. Imagine being able to talk with different teams around the office simultaneously; Discuss plans from your own computer instead of having to walk to the meeting room. Microsoft Teams does that, and more. Microsoft Teams is the hub for teamwork in Office 365 that integrates all the people, content, and tools your team needs to be more engaged and effective. With it you can video chat, make audio calls and preform many more communication methods. The best part, you can use teams alongside the rest of the Office 365 suite.

Earlier this year Microsoft provided the same free version of Teams to educational users. Report shows that by the end of March 2018, more than 200 thousand organizations are using Teams, with 8 million active daily users. Users of free version of Teams have the option to upgrade to paid Office 365 plans, which has more storage space and wider access to Cloud based Microsoft Office software.

On top of teams, Microsoft will also provide a new set of analytics tools such as corporation calendar and email to provide an in depth personalized insights of staff as it is a perfect tool to track for work. All those tools would bring significant benefits to small businesses.

Reference: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/microsoft-offers-businsses-a-free-version-of-teams-its-slack-rival/2018/07/12/f4a2db72-85ff-11e8-9e06-4db52ac42e05_story.html?utm_term=.812dc6e39cb6

Family Man Brett Kavanaugh has been nominated by the current president of the United States, to serve as one of nine members on the Supreme Court. He was vetted and recommended to the president by the Federalist society and the Heritage foundation along with a long list of other qualified officials. Among those officials who were brought to the attention of, but not chosen by the president are three other stellar choices for the conservatives Judge Thomas M. Hardiman, Judge Raymond M. Kethledge and Judge Amy Coney Barrett, each have contributed greatly to the justice department. Kavanaugh was selected to join the supreme court after serving 12 years as a Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit, which has produced a number of justices.

Brett Kavanaugh was born February 12 1965 to Edward and Martha Kavanaugh. In a recent interview Kavanaugh called his mother a “trailblazer.”, and the reason he decided to create a career in justice. After graduating cum laude from Washington School of Law at American University in 1978, Martha Kavanaugh, became prosecutor in Montgomery County, Maryland, Brett’s home state. During Kavanaugh’s childhood he recalls listening to his mother’s closing arguments at the family dinner table. His mother’s passion for the law inspired him to go to Yale Law school, where he eventually graduated from in 1990. Three years after his law school graduation Kavanaugh served as Justice Anthony Kennedy’s clerk, the justice who he is now replacing. In the late 1990’s along with Kenneth Star, Kavanaugh was a key member of the independent counsel, which produced the report that served as the basis for president Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Following which he served in the Bush White house from 2001 to 2006. And finally finished his career to date as a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals. Where he has issued approximately 300 opinions and has delivered numerous speeches.

At 53, Kavanaugh is known as a family man, he currently coaches his daughter’s basketball team and has been a committed member of his community for years. Along with family religion also plays a major part in Kavanaugh’s life and effects his judicial decisions. Kavanaugh is a stalwart for religious freedom. Russell More, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention said he is confident Kavanaugh will be a strong defender of the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution and Bill of Rights, especially our first freedom of religious liberty. Kavanaugh will continue to uphold his values and morals in the highest court in the land.

In the upcoming weeks Judge Kavanaugh will embark on a busy schedule of courtesy calls and visits to key members of the senate judiciary committee and other senators where he will discuss with them his judicial philosophy, past rulings and public statements. To assist his process the white house will roll out an intensive campaign to sell the nominee to the senate and the American public. He has to be voted in by the legislative branch by the senate. But until then there is no settled justice because the senate has not decided yet.

Sources:

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-07-09/trump-says-he-cant-go-wrong-with-his-top-court-contenders

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/martha-kavanaugh-mother-brett-kavanaughs-supreme-court-nominee/

Recently, President Donald Trump decided to impose tariffs on about $50 billion worth of imports from China – This is when the trading war between U.S. and China started and escalated. The white house claimed this new restriction is executed in response to Beijing’s longstanding theft of US companies’ intellectual property.

Asian stocks struggled since Tuesday, June 19, 2018. The marketing is being kept dragging down for the past 2 weeks by the fears that China and Trump administration would plunging deeper into the trading competition with no easy way to exit.

At the meanwhile, Wall Street had its worst day of the month one day after the slump in Asia market. The US market slide more than 475 points (2 percent).

An additional tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese products are scheduled to carry out on July 6. This policy spiked Chinese central bank to pump more than $100 billion to the financial system of the country. This policy was a signal that China is responding to an economic slowdown but also bracing for a possible long-haul trade fight with the Trump government.

Ahn Deuk-geun, an international trade expert at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of International Studies, said the recent decline in Asian stocks “shows the impact of escalating trade war between China and the U.S.”

“Even amid relieved geopolitical tensions following North Korea rapprochement,” Ahn said, “the jitters about the China trade tensions seem to have an overpowering impact on the markets.”

Source:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/asian-markets-slump-again-amid-deepening-china-u-s-trade-war-fears/2018/06/25/cad47f0c-78e5-11e8-93cc-6d3beccdd7a3_story.html?utm_term=.f54abd50133d

Last month, the Small Business Administration released its scorecard for fiscal year 2017. Among the news was that small business contracts have exceeded $100 billion dollars for the first time ever. This milestone stems from surpassed expectations: the federal government has a small business contracting goal that 23% of government-wide contracting spending comes from small businesses, and the federal government has exceeded its goal for the last five years in a row.

Unfortunately, the federal government did miss its goals for government-wide prime contracting for women-owned small businesses, as the government aimed for 5% but only hit 4.71%. Likewise, the federal government also missed its prime and subcontracting for Historically Underutilized Business Zones.

However, small business contracts exceeding $100 billion is an exciting milestone. The scorecard also revealed the eight agencies with the highest mark of an A-plus: The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Labor, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Personnel Management, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the SBA. The A-plus grade reflects the agencies’ “significant efforts” toward meeting the 23% small business contracting goal. Going into next year, the SBA hopes to reach out to small business tech. Of course, higher numbers and surpassed goals are expected for fiscal year 2018 again.

Small business owners usually handle all their current work by themselves, although outsourcing some work proved to be effective. Xero Bookkeepers can cover all that relates to your business’ accounts. And you will have more time to develop your business.

Source:

https://federalnewsradio.com/agency-oversight/2018/05/sba-scorecard-small-business-contracts