Research and data are important components to the jobs of Capture Managers and Proposal Managers. We constantly seek out new data sources. Recently, the General Services Administration (GSA) opened its Acquisition Gateway (https://hallways.cap.gsa.gov/homepage/welcome.html) to the general public.

The Acquisition Gateway is a relatively new tool, established in December 2014, to remove procurement duplication across Government agencies through category management. Category management brings together expertise across the Government and Industry grouped by products or services to provide Government buyers a holistic view of the procurement landscape to enable data-driven decisions, better purchasing options, and save taxpayer money. The goal of the site is to encourage agency acquisition officials to collaborate and share information using the Acquisition Gateway. This assists Government buyers in navigating the procurement process and assessing procurement options in an effort to bring down prices and make smarter purchasing decisions.

The Acquisition Gateway offers category-related articles produced by federal employees, templates, market-research tools, and prices-paid data organized along the steps of the acquisition life cycle.

According to Anne Rung, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, “This is truly meant to be a new tool for all of government, not just GSA, to spur growth and greater transparency and competition” while bringing together government and industry partners. “

While the Acquisition Gateway is geared toward the Government buyer, citizens, industry, Government contractors, and other are interested in the data generated by the site. As recently reported in Government Executive, according to Tom Sharpe, commissioner of the GSA Federal Acquisition Service, “the general public will have access to as much of the Acquisition Gateway as possible and will experience the same user-centric design as federal users.”

Currently the site offers information on various procurement vehicles used and available across agencies within category areas. Additionally, there are resources such as a Statement of Work library and news related items. As the site continues to grow and take hold within the federal procurement community it will be one of many useful information sources for the Government contracting community and marketplace.