{"id":2472,"date":"2026-08-17T09:29:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T09:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/?p=2472"},"modified":"2026-08-17T09:30:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T09:30:57","slug":"dans-weekly-insights-no-22-the-cost-vs-capability-paradox-why-cheap-always-loses-in-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/dans-weekly-insights-no-22-the-cost-vs-capability-paradox-why-cheap-always-loses-in-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"DANS Weekly Insights No. 22. The \u201cCost vs Capability\u201d Paradox: Why Cheap Always Loses in Defence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In commercial markets, price wins.<\/strong>
In defence, price almost never wins.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

This is the paradox most SMEs misunderstand.<\/span><\/p>

OEMs do not<\/em> select suppliers based on who is cheapest.<\/span>
They select based on who can:<\/span><\/p>

  • deliver consistently,<\/span><\/li>
  • document every step,<\/span><\/li>
  • trace every material,<\/span><\/li>
  • guarantee repeatability,<\/span><\/li>
  • withstand audits,<\/span><\/li>
  • survive long-term programs,<\/span><\/li>
  • and scale under pressure.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>

    Here\u2019s the data:<\/span><\/p>

    \ud83d\udc49 In several major European OEMs unit price accounts for less than 20% of the supplier selection score<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

    The other 80% is:<\/span><\/p>

    • capability<\/span><\/li>
    • compliance<\/span><\/li>
    • process maturity<\/span><\/li>
    • traceability<\/span><\/li>
    • risk reduction<\/span><\/li><\/ul>

      If you focus on price, you lose.<\/span>
      If you focus on capability, you win.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      In commercial markets, price wins.In defence, price almost never wins. This is the paradox most SMEs misunderstand. OEMs do not select suppliers based on who is cheapest.They select based on who can: deliver consistently, document every step, trace every material, guarantee repeatability, withstand audits, survive long-term programs, and scale under pressure. Here\u2019s the data: \ud83d\udc49 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2472"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2476,"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472\/revisions\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dans.ltd\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}