Government Operations committee  I can name many, but is this confidential? Is it recorded?

Government Operations committee  I'm only going to talk about RFPs. We participated in it. Just as an example, there was a PPP RFP. Our organization does public-private partnerships. We have a new model. I've written a book about that model. We have an alliance with KPMG. We are a small company, but we are very good at doing what we call adaptive procurements or adaptive relationships, the outcome-based procurements he's talking about.

Government Operations committee  I will answer that. I want to make a comment on this whole outcome-based prescriptiveness. There is no one size that fits all. At times, the government needs to be prescriptive; at other times, it needs to be outcome-based. In every medium to complex procurement, you have three things.

Government Operations committee  I haven't seen a lot of it in Australia or New Zealand, but there were a couple of situations in which the rules were relaxed in the U.K. to allow this kind of stuff. You know, it's not really about technology; it's about creating the conditions for small and medium enterprises to team up together on opportunity.

Government Operations committee  One of my recommendations is to create a network enterprise support office. That would be a good catalyst, if you like, to help the SMEs form these relationships. When there's a bid on the street, when there is a major DND procurement, when something is going on with the big guys teaming up with the little guys, somebody needs to be helping the little guys get together and create that super-enterprise that can actually do the work.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. I'd like to give you a practical view of SMEs in action. I'd first like to talk a bit in terms of general feedback about the challenges that SMEs are facing when it comes to federal procurement, some of which have been mentioned.