I don't live in the US but this would annoy me greatly.
Having worked in big companies where consulting firms like IBM and Deloitte have really screwed things up one thing has become abundantly clear to me.
Building yourself is always better. There are really no caveats to this. A team hired by you is a team aligned with you. A firm servicing a consulting contract will always milk the contract for whatever they can get, especially when they often do really sly things like settle for a lower initial cost but build in onerous clauses that drastically blow out costs for all sorts of reasons.
If anything they should expand 18F/USDS and eliminate the buy-first policy in favor of build-first. Only go to vendors when it's just not feasible to build it with the resources available.
Having worked in big companies where consulting firms like IBM and Deloitte have really screwed things up one thing has become abundantly clear to me.
Building yourself is always better. There are really no caveats to this. A team hired by you is a team aligned with you. A firm servicing a consulting contract will always milk the contract for whatever they can get, especially when they often do really sly things like settle for a lower initial cost but build in onerous clauses that drastically blow out costs for all sorts of reasons.
If anything they should expand 18F/USDS and eliminate the buy-first policy in favor of build-first. Only go to vendors when it's just not feasible to build it with the resources available.