Start Small. Prove Fast. Scale Deliberately. Why Software Vendors Must Rethink Packaging Under the Warfighting Acquisition System
Harvey Morrison: Co-Founder/CEO, Marion Square
This is Part Three in our Marion Square series on the Warfighting Acquisition System and what it means for commercial technology vendors.
In our first post, we examined the structural shift from the Defense Acquisition System to the Warfighting Acquisition System. In the second, we looked at the introduction of portfolio-level acquisition leadership and why scaling decisions are now made differently.
Now we turn to something more practical and more uncomfortable for many software companies:
The Department is redesigning acquisition around rapid entry and controlled scale.
Most commercial software companies are not designed to sell that way.
For years, selling software into the federal government often meant pursuing a large program opportunity, negotiating a broad deployment, and structuring a multi-year agreement from the outset. Even when pilots were used, they were often treated as stepping stones toward immediate enterprise adoption.
The Warfighting Acquisition System signals something different.
By elevating Commercial Solutions Openings, OTAs, modular architectures, faster testing pipelines, and portfolio-level funding flexibility, the Department is building an acquisition environment optimized for rapid prototyping and deliberate scaling. The system is being engineered to reduce the risk of initial adoption while preserving the ability to expand what works.
That has implications not just for contracting strategy but for how software is packaged and priced.
Under this model, entry is meant to be fast and bounded. Scope is intentionally constrained. Risk is deliberately limited. Initial commitments are smaller by design. That means the traditional enterprise first sales motion can create friction at precisely the wrong moment.
When a vendor insists on large licensing structures, broad platform deployments, or heavy upfront integration before value is demonstrated, it collides with a system that is trying to move quickly and evaluate incrementally.
The Department is structuring itself to test capabilities in real environments before making scaling decisions. Vendors that structure their commercial model the same way align naturally with that process.
This is not about discounting or undervaluing technology.
It is about separating proof of value from enterprise commitment.
A software company that can offer a well-scoped, rapid proof-of-concept priced clearly, integrated cleanly, and measured against defined outcomes lowers the barrier to entry. That aligns directly with the Warfighting Acquisition System’s emphasis on speed and modular adoption.
From there, the question shifts.
Not “Can this work?”
But “Should this scale?”
And that is where packaging matters just as much as performance.
If expansion requires renegotiating an entirely new enterprise agreement, rebuilding pricing structures, or rewriting technical integration models, scale slows down. If expansion is designed into the commercial structure from day one technically and financially the transition from pilot to broader adoption becomes far more natural.
This is especially important in the context of the newly introduced portfolio level oversight.
As discussed in the previous post, Portfolio Managers are now evaluating capabilities across multiple programs and use cases. They are looking for tools that reduce redundancy, integrate cleanly, and can be reused across the organization. When they consider expansion, they are evaluating more than technical performance. They are assessing cost to scale, licensing flexibility, architectural fit, and long-term sustainment implications.
Vendors who anticipate that scrutiny and design their packaging accordingly are better positioned to move beyond isolated deployments. The Warfighting Acquisition System is intentionally lowering the barrier to initial adoption. It is creating faster intake mechanisms and more agile funding flows.
But that does not automatically create scale.
Scale still requires commercial structure.
Software companies that adapt their packaging and pricing to support rapid entry and modular expansion will find themselves aligned with the direction the Department is moving. Those that treat federal like a standard enterprise sales cycle may continue to generate interest but struggle to convert pilots into durable positions.
The shift underway is not merely procedural. It is architectural. The Department is redesigning how it brings technology in and how it decides what endures.
Software vendors should redesign how they meet it.