Defense business transformation : a full-time chief management officer with a term appointment is needed at DOD to maintain continuity of effort and achieve sustainable success : testimony before the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affair

Pentagon spending has been the target of decades of criticism and reform efforts. Billions of dollars are spent on weapons programs that are later abandoned. State-of-the-art data centers are underutilized and overstaffed. New business systems are built at great expense but fail to meet the needs of their users. Every Secretary of Defense for the last five Administrations has made it a priority to address perceived bloat and inefficiency by making management reform a major priority. The congressional defense committees have been just as active, enacting hundreds of legislative provisions. Yet few of these initiatives produce significant results, and the Pentagon appears to go on, as wasteful as ever. In this book, Peter Levine addresses why, despite a long history of attempted reform, the Pentagon continues to struggle to reduce waste and inefficiency. The heart of Defense Management Reform is three case studies covering civilian personnel, acquisitions, and financial management. Narrated with the insight of an insider, the result is a clear understanding of what went wrong in the past and a set of concrete guidelines to plot a better future.

Although DOD has made progress toward establishing a management framework for overall business transformation, the framework currently focuses on business systems modernization and does not fully address broader business transformation efforts. In 2005, DOD set up the Defense Business Systems Management Committee to review and approve the business enterprise architecture a transformation blueprint and new business systems modernization investments. It also established the Business Transformation Agency, which currently reports to the Vice Chair of the Defense Business Systems Management Committee, to coordinate and lead business transformation across the department. Despite these steps, DOD has not clearly defined or institutionalized interrelationships, roles and responsibilities, or accountability for establishing a management framework for overall business transformation. For example, differences of opinion exist within DOD about the roles of various senior leadership committees. Until DOD's business transformation management framework is institutionalized and encompasses broad responsibilities for all aspects of business transformation, it will be challenging for DOD to integrate related initiatives into a sustainable, enterprise-wide approach to successfully resolve weaknesses in business operations that GAO has shown are at high risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.

The DoD spends billions of dollars each year to maintain key business operations, including systems and processes related to the management of contracts, finances, the supply chain, support infrastructure, and weapon systems acquisition. A number of these areas are vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mis-management and because of opportunities to achieve greater efficiencies and free up resources for higher-priority needs. This study assessed the extent to which DoD has taken steps to: (1) implement management frameworks for business transformation; and (2) develop business transformation plans, supported by a strategic planning process, that enable them to align goals and planning efforts and measure progress. A print on demand report.

Today, and in the foreseeable future, military operations require U.S. personnel to work alongside multinational partners and among local populations. The DoD has placed a greater emphasis on transforming language and regional proficiency capabilities, which includes cultural awareness. This testimony summarizes recommendations on DoD's efforts to develop language skills and regional proficiency and the steps DoD has taken to implement these prior recommendations. Specifically, the testimony addresses the extent to which DoD has: (1) developed a strategic plan to guide its language and regional proficiency transformation efforts; and (2) obtained the information it needs to identify capability gaps and assess risk.

The Congress and the Pres. need to have reliable, useful and timely financial and performance info. to make sound decisions on the current and future direction of vital fed. gov¿t. programs and policies. There is no assurance on the reliability of the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. gov¿t. due primarily to certain material weaknesses in the fed. gov¿ts. internal control. Unless these weaknesses are adequately addressed, they will, among other things: (1) hamper the fed. gov¿ts. ability to reliably report a significant portion of its assets, liabilities, costs, and other related info.; and (2) affect the fed. gov¿ts. ability to reliably measure the full cost as well as the financial and non-financial performance of certain programs and activities. Includes recomm.