Best Practices for Longer-Term Service Contracts

This project, presented at the Naval Postgraduate School's 21st Annual Acquisition Research Symposium, summarizes best practices identified by commercial companies, foreign governments, and state governments in using service contracts for periods longer than five years. The project also covers service contracts longer than five years used by the federal government. The findings indicate that relational management approaches are best suited for longer-term service contracts. This research better informs the DOD on possibly increasing the number of service contracts longer than five years to obtain cost and performance benefits.