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TITLE VIII--ACQUISITION POLICY, ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT, AND RELATED MATTERS

Subtitle H — Other Matters

P. L. 115-

House Conference Report. 115-874

Not later than February 1, 2019, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, in consultation with the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, shall review the guidance of the Department of Defense with regard to those portions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation regarding commercially available market research, including sections 10.001(a)(2)(vi) and 10.002(b), and market research practices. The review shall, at a minimum—

(1) assess the impact that conducting market research has on the Department’s resources;

(2) ensure that commercially available market research is considered among other sources of research, as appropriate, and reviewed prior to developing new requirements documents for an acquisition by the Department;

(3) assess the extent to which the legal or regulatory definitions of market research should be made consistent, revised, or expanded;

(4) assess the extent to which guidance pertaining to market research should be revised or expanded; and

(5) evaluate best practices in market research in public and private organizations, including use of information technologies to support such research.

The Senate amendment contained a provision (sec. 802) that would amend section 2431a of title 10, United States Code, to define the market research requirement of major defense acquisition program acquisition strategies. This provision is intended to improve the Department of Defense’s capacity to conduct market research by diversifying the sources and methods used.

The House bill contained no similar provision.

The House recedes with an amendment that would direct the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to conduct a review of market research guidance and practices.

The conferees note that a growing share of the Department’s spending is on information technology products and services and believes robust market research is critical to acquisition planning. The conferees believe that sufficient attention is not being given to market research and are concerned that the Department’s sources of data for market research are limited and lack diversity.

The conferees therefore encourage the Department’s contracting officers to use commercially available detailed third-party market research, which should include any disclosures of a third-party’s interests and which should be considered by contracting officers in the context of all available data sources, to ensure that they have the best and most complete information available in developing and executing their acquisition strategies.