category management | The Contracting Education Academy

June 9, 2016 By AMK

How to avoid vendor problems and reduce costs

What federal agencies don’t know about contractors and markets can hurt them.

OPM Witness the sudden disappearance last month of Imperatis Corp., the contractor renovating the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) computer network in the wake of last summer’s breach of the personnel and background investigation records of 21.5 million people. Imperatis announced it was ceasing operations due to financial distress on May 7.

OPM was caught unaware and, though it isn’t expecting termination of the company’s contract to affect operations, the situation has deepened already intense congressional and inspector general scrutiny at a time when the agency is seeking additional funds for technology upgrades.

Market Research Deeper understanding of the interactions, trends, constraints, behaviors and financials of vendors, their supply networks and buyers in the IT services market will significantly reduce the risk that OPM or other agencies will face incidents like this one.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/06/how-avoid-vendor-problems-and-reduce-costs/128755

April 5, 2016 By AMK

OMB releases draft policy slashing mobile contracts

Federal agencies could soon be forced to cut down their mobile device and service contracts.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a draft policy Tuesday directing agencies to reduce their contracts wherever possible by entering into governmentwide or agencywide buying agreements, and by entering their purchasing information into one centrally managed system.

OMB’s policy would also require agency chief information officers to consolidate minute and data requirements into a single contract per carrier, using a governmentwide acquisition vehicle, by Sep. 30, 2018, the draft said.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/mobile/2016/03/omb-releases-draft-policy-cutting-down-duplicative-mobile-device-purchases/127069

April 1, 2016 By AMK

Agencies discover the limits of a U.K. procurement model

The Obama administration’s efforts to streamline federal purchasing have included something called category management—essentially organizing products into groupings that can be managed more efficiently as business units to maximize savings.

That approach was inspired by a similar program in place in the United Kingdom. But Anne Rung, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said on Tuesday there are important differences between the two governments that make direct comparisons difficult. The U.K. government “is smaller than us, they hired full-time category managers and got permission to pay extremely high salaries to run a centralized buying shop,” she said at the 2016 acquisition conference of the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council.

Launched a year ago, the U.S. government’s category management effort is run by an interagency council, which now has chief executives for 10 categories of common agency purchases and an online portal being used by 6,500 federal purchasing employees, Rung said. With $2 billion in savings and a reduction in the total number of contracts, “it’s driving greater efficiency in the $10 billion spent each year on personal computers, software and mobile devices.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2016/03/agencies-discover-limits-uk-procurement-model/126887/

March 10, 2016 By AMK

‘CEOs’ to build on $2 billion in federal acquisition savings

The Obama administration’s decision to name 11 executives to lead the government down the path toward better buying is one of 23 actions it has taken over the last 15 months to implement category management.

Those actions, the White House says, have saved or avoided agencies spending more than $2 billion.

Anne Rung, Administrator, Office of Federal Procurement Policy

Anne Rung, the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said naming the category managers is a crucial step in getting greater value out of the $440 billion the government spends annually on procurement.

Rung named 11 category managers on Feb. 25 to bring 10 commodity buying areas under better control by conducting spend analysis, market research, financial and supply chain risk analysis, and using this information to develop strategic plans specific to the category with clear metrics and outcomes.

“OMB, working with the category management leadership council, identified the agencies that would manage each of these categories. We looked at the agencies with the greatest amount of expertise and proven excellence in their category. We allowed the agencies to identify the best person to run the category,” Rung said in an interview with Federal News Radio. “These category managers are category CEOs, so we did specify that we wanted a senior executive managing these categories.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2016/03/ceos-build-2b-acquisition-savings/

February 23, 2016 By AMK

New acquisition tool allows agencies to comparison shop

Contractors and interested members of the public may now use the online Acquisition Gateway to view a slice of agency procurement data, the General Services Administration has announced.

The new tool advances the Obama Administration’s push, launched in December 2014, to remove procurement duplication across government through category management.

Agencies are encouraged to “act as one” and use the Acquisition Gateway to find side-by-side comparisons of different agency solutions for common procurement challenges such as cloud computing and logistics. The idea is to let agency purchasers connect with like-minded professionals and explore the 10 “hallways” of products and services.

The 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. Opening it to the public was done in the “spirit of data transparency,” GSA said.

Keep reading this article at: http://m.govexec.com/contracting/2016/02/new-acquisition-tool-allows-agencies-comparison-shop/125731/

What federal agencies don’t know about contractors and markets can hurt them.

Federal agencies could soon be forced to cut down their mobile device and service contracts.

The Obama administration’s efforts to streamline federal purchasing have included something called category management—essentially organizing products into groupings that can be managed more efficiently as business units to maximize savings.

The Obama administration’s decision to name 11 executives to lead the government down the path toward better buying is one of 23 actions it has taken over the last 15 months to implement category management.

Contractors and interested members of the public may now use the online Acquisition Gateway to view a slice of agency procurement data, the General Services Administration has announced.

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