There are some changes being made at the General Services Administration (GSA). Just last week, they announced a new plan that is intended to make GSA a more unified and centralized system for the federal agencies who order from it. It is also designed to bring more of the process online, as another strategy to improve the program. Here’s an excerpt from an article published on FCW.com:
“The agency has been unveiling various pieces of the strategy, but the Aug. 21 panel marked the first time they’ve been connected into a larger picture. “Over the last year,” Sharpe said, “we’ve worked out four initiatives.
The first, he said, is category management — something Sharpe initially announced in the spring. As part of this effort, GSA said in July that it planned to roll out a “hallway” concept for acquisition of IT gear, developing a team of experts offering guidance and best practices with the aim of ensuring pricing transparency and common standards. The hallways, Fredriksen said during the panel discussion, would launch at the end of September.
The next piece of the strategy, Sharpe said, is a common acquisition platform that allows customers to electronically meld contracting templates and sources that fit their needs. The CAP is both a platform and a strategy, and it will combine technologies and data on purchasing and pricing via a Web portal.
The third piece, he said, is modernizing GSA’s sometimes creaky business models, which can date back decades.
And the fourth, Sharpe said, is expanding GSA’s resources to provide customized information for federal projects. Like the insurance company that promises to search its competitors’ policies for the best value for their customer, GSA will do much the same with a wide range of federal contracts. The idea, he said, is for agencies to come to GSA first before striking out on their own and creating a possibly redundant contract.”
Read the rest of the article here. Comment below to let us know how or if you think these changes could affect how your company works with its GSA Schedule(s).