category management | The Contracting Education Academy

May 26, 2020 By cs

GSA releases tool for monitoring agency spending

The General Services Administration (GSA) has made its Governmentwide Category Management (GWCM) Awards Exploration Tool publicly available.

Now, federal agencies, vendors, and the general public have a new data source to see where agencies are spending contract dollars.

The database lets users find information at the award level such as by contract name and spend under various major contract management tiers.

Previously, GSA made the tool only available to federal employees.

The GWCM awards search tool is one of several offered by GSA for vendors and other stakeholders at https://d2d.gsa.gov/report/public-category-management-dashboards-analytics.

**Screenshot of GSA’s publicly-available contract awards search tool.**

Interestingly, the new tool displays data in 10 major categories of federal contract spending: facilities and construction; human capital; industrial products and services; IT; medical; office management; professional services; security and protection; transportation and logistics; and travel.

**Screenshot of Facilities & Construction data.**

While small business utilization data is viewable on individual category management pages such as the one shown above, as of May 26 the overall Small Business Dashboard was not functioning.

February 24, 2020 By cs

Fiscal 2021 budget seeks to ‘resize’ the bureaucracy

Among other things, the White House wants to rein in “improper end-of-year spending” by agencies.

On the afternoon of Feb. 10th, President Trump sent Congress a $4.8 trillion budget request for fiscal 2021 that seeks to “resize” the federal government by eliminating what the administration views as duplicative and wasteful programs and focusing on core security priorities.

The budget request includes a number of proposals Congress has previously rejected, such as significant cuts to the social safety net, foreign aid and environmental programs, as well as some federal workforce hiring and firing reforms and changes to federal retirement the administration has tried to implement previously with mixed success.

Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters on Monday that the budget reflects “the core elements of the president’s management agenda” and is a “continuation of what we’ve attempted to do over the last couple of years around the workforce.” While the administration will continue to press for moving federal employees to a pay-for-performance system and employee training and reskilling, “not surprisingly, in year four of an administration there’s not a lot of net new ideas,” she said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/02/trumps-fiscal-2021-budget-seeks-resize-bureaucracy/163014/

October 29, 2019 By cs

Air Force adds attitude to governmentwide category management

In the dog-eat-dog world of raising and training canines for government patrol and detection duties, federal agencies increasingly are competing not only among themselves, but also with foreign governments for a dwindling supply in a global market.

The Air Force is the executive agent for Defense Department working dogs — buying, training and breeding them at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where the Transportation Security Administration also trains its dogs.

Late last year, Jaclyn Rubino, the director of the strategic sourcing program office at the Homeland Security Department and manager of the governmentwide security and protection category, appointed the Air Force to lead creation of the governmentwide working dog category intelligence report (CIR). In so doing, Rubio signaled support for the robust, analytics-based, requirements-focused and market-facing category management approach the Air Force follows.

Rubino flew to San Antonio and actively participated in the CIR requirements workshop. In addition, she helped reach across federal agencies including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Customs and Border Patrol, the U.S. Marshals, the FBI, the Transportation Safety Administration, and the Defense Department to win their participation and brief their working dog programs.

Not only is the Air Force leading the pack in the working dog category, it also has been charged by the Defense Department to help its fellow services learn from the Air Force approach to category management.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2019/10/air-force-adds-attitude-to-governmentwide-category-management/

October 4, 2019 By cs

GSA finishes schedule consolidation on deadline

The General Services Administration hit its deadline to consolidate 24 acquisition schedules into one set of terms and conditions for products and services.

The Multiple Award Schedules Consolidation is the part of the agency’s Federal Marketplace Strategy intended to modernize acquisition for federal, state and local governments. GSA released the newly consolidated schedule solicitation Monday evening, Sept. 30, on FedBizOpps.

“This is an important first step toward our goal of simplifying the experience for customers, suppliers, and GSA’s acquisition workforce,” said Emily Murphy, GSA administrator, in the announcement.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/gsa-schedules-consolidation-complete/

October 3, 2019 By cs

Schedules consolidation: Congratulations — phase I and the end of the beginning!

Oct. 1st marked the beginning of a new era for the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedule program.

On that date, Phase I of MAS Consolidation will end with the issuance of a new, consolidated solicitation for the single schedule.

Phase I included a host of interrelated tasks necessary to develop a single solicitation covering the entire scope of the MAS program. Among the tasks to be accomplished were:

Reviewing every term and condition in each of the 24 solicitations;
Mapping duplicate Special Item Numbers (SINs) across current solicitations; and,
Using North American Industry Classification System codes to reduce the current 900 SINs on 24 schedules down to approximately 300 SINs on a single solicitation.

In addition, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service was tasked to use Category Management to reorganize offerings across the single solicitation.

The completion of these activities represents a significant step forward in shaping the 21st-century MAS program. They also represent just a part of the effort. For example, FAS has evolved systems updates to accommodate the issuance of the single solicitation. Likewise, GSA has recognized the importance of training and outreach to GSA acquisition staff, customer agencies, and industry partners in terms of promoting a successful consolidation.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2019/09/schedules-consolidation-congratulations-phase-i-and-the-end-of-the-beginning/

The General Services Administration (GSA) has made its Governmentwide Category Management (GWCM) Awards Exploration Tool publicly available.

Among other things, the White House wants to rein in “improper end-of-year spending” by agencies.

In the dog-eat-dog world of raising and training canines for government patrol and detection duties, federal agencies increasingly are competing not only among themselves, but also with foreign governments for a dwindling supply in a global market.

The General Services Administration hit its deadline to consolidate 24 acquisition schedules into one set of terms and conditions for products and services.

Oct. 1st marked the beginning of a new era for the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedule program.

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