SD-5 Market ResearchThe purpose of this document is to provide DoD and other Federal personnel involved in the acquisition process with practical guidance on using market research to ensure the acquisition of products and services that will best serve the government??s needs. Specifically, this document is designed for personnel involved with establishing requirements for products or services, such as engineers, technical specialists, project officers, and customers; personnel involved with purchasing products or services, such as contracting officers, contract specialists, and cost analysts; and personnel who support the acquisition process, such as logisticians, testing and quality assurance specialists, and legal counsel.

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to provide in-depth information to answer specific questions about the capabilities, products, or services available in the market.These questions are derived from the requirements definition. Users' requirements need to be continually considered when doing tactical market research.

In large, complex weapons systems covered by the Integrated Defense Acquisition,Technolo- gy, and Logistics Life-Cycle Process, market research is done throughout the acquisition process, beginning with the initial capabilities document developed during the concept development phase. In early phases, both strategic and tactical market research can be used to shape the ac- quisition process.The information gleaned from market research will affect the acquisition strat- egy, requirements definition, support and test plans, product description, statement of work, evaluation factors, and contract terms and conditions. Early market research is particularly sig- nificant because it could have a major effect on how the program unfolds.

Done early in the acquisition process-before the capabilities development document is vali- dated at Milestone B, for example1-market research makes it possible to compare the users' re- quirements to the capabilities of the commercial market and to determine the following:

• Availability of products to meet the requirements as is

• Ability of suppliers to modify their products to meet the users' requirements

• Flexibility of the users to modify their requirements to allow the purchase of commercial items, commercial services, or nondevelopmental items.

Such market research can be effective only with the understanding that comes from good up-front requirements definition.

Tactical market research must be conducted again later in the acquisition process to identify the correct set of performance characteristics for the product or service description (system specification, commercial item description, statement of work, or statement of objectives), the appropriate solicitation and contract terms and conditions, and the commercial practices affect- ing the support strategy and the acquisition strategy in general.

Figure 1 illustrates the use of strategic and tactical market research during a major weapons system acquisition. Strategic market research is a market monitoring process occurring continu- ously throughout the acquisition process.Tactical market research occurs periodically as needed to find specific solutions. (The figure shows tactical research as one distinct market research in- vestigation occurring in each acquisition phase, but, in reality, multiple targeted investigations may be needed within a single acquisition phase.)

For system acquisitions, market research is iterative. If the initial market research leads to the conclusion that no existing system can meet the need, market research will be needed to iden-

1For detailed information on the Defense Acquisition System and milestones, visit the Defense Acquisition

Policy Center at https://akss.dau.mil/dapc/index.html.

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