Contract Consolidation | The Contracting Education Academy

September 9, 2019 By cs

The danger in GSA’s online marketplaces

A little commentary from the General Services Administration on our website urges government buyers to use the agency’s multiple-award schedule contracts.

The venerable MAS contracts generate about $45 billion in annual sales.

Over the years, GSA has continually tinkered with the awards schedules to keep the program relevant. Now it’s about to collapse the 24 individual schedules into one. GSA will release the new consolidated schedule and its terms and conditions on Oct. 1, with a goal of moving all vendors to one schedule by the end of fiscal 2020. GSA let industry know about the consolidated schedule plan late last year.

No change in federal procurement is ever simple.

Center Law Group’s Barbara Kinosky, whom I’ve interviewed from time to time, wrote this about the consolidation: “We understand modifications to add the new consolidated [special item numbers] will not be accepted after Sept. 30 until sometime in mid-January 2020 after contractors have accepted the mass modification incorporating the new consolidated schedule terms and conditions.”

See what I mean?

Once the conversion is done, buyers and sellers will, in theory, have a simpler, more uniform contracting system to deal with. The consolidation is one of many updates and improvements GSA is making to modernize the MAS and the supporting tools like e-modification.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2019/08/the-danger-in-gsas-online-marketplaces/

August 20, 2019 By AMK

GSA releases fact sheet to aid agencies buying on consolidated Multiple Award Schedule

The General Services Administration (GSA) is modernizing federal acquisition by consolidating the existing 24 Schedules into one single Schedule for products, services, and solutions.

One contract vehicle will make it easier for federal agencies and other customers to find total solutions, ensure terms and conditions meet their needs, and eliminate duplicate contracts.

Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) Consolidation is one of the four cornerstone initiatives of GSA’s Federal Marketplace (FMP) Strategy, a plan to modernize and simplify the buying and selling experience for customers, suppliers, and acquisition professionals.

Throughout the MAS Consolidation process, customers can continue purchasing through GSA vehicles as they normally would. GSA anticipates no disruptions to customers. Once the consolidation is completed, customers will experience a more streamlined and simplified buying experience.

GSA’s MAS program management office has just issued a fact sheet that describes in detail what Schedule buyers can expect during each of three phases of MAS consolidation. You can access the fact sheet on the Federal Marketplace website here: MAS Consolidation Customer Fact Sheet – 08.2019

August 16, 2019 By AMK

The 4 cornerstones of government acquisition reform

The General Services Administration’s strategy for improving the federal marketplace in the coming years will rely on approximately 25 reforms, according to agency officials, but a handful of those will serve as the central points to shore up the rest of the strategy.

“We are trying to simplify the buying and selling process,” said Alan Thomas, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, at a July 24 Association for Federal Information Resources Management event.

According to Thomas, four of those simplification initiatives will serve as cornerstones, meaning that they are central to and tied in with the success of the other “stones” around them:

Development of an enterprisewide contract writing system.
Managing catalog data.
Consolidating the Multiple Award Schedule program.
Progressing on a commercial platform initiative.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/07/24/government-acquisition-reform-to-rely-on-4-cornerstones/

February 8, 2019 By AMK

HHS is transforming acquisition with automation

The Health and Human Services Department is looking to improve its acquisition processes and redundancies in departmentwide contracting by putting emerging technologies behind its data and the $24 billion it spends in goods and services each year.

That’s according to Lori Ruderman, Buy Smarter initiative lead and senior adviser at the HHS Program Support Center. Buy Smarter is how HHS is reimagining and transforming purchasing by adopting tech like artificial intelligence and analyzing department requirements on spend data to achieve lower prices and consolidate contract vehicles and requirements with HHS and, eventually, across the government.

“Buy Smarter is an innovative opportunity for HHS to … look at our category management, break down some stovepipes and consolidate our requirements across the board,” Ruderman said at the Jan. 29 AFCEA Health IT Summit in Bethesda, Maryland. Because within HHS, all its different operational and staff divisions buy many of the same items on separate contracts, duplicating efforts.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.governmentciomedia.com/hhs-transforming-acquisition-automation

October 24, 2018 By AMK

FBI drops full and open competition for $5 billion IT recompete

The competitive pool for the FBI’s $5 billion IT commodity and services contract has been shrinking throughout the year and recently got even smaller.

Rather than hold a full and open competition for spots on the Information Technology Supplies and Support Services contract, also known as ITSSS or IT Triple-S, the bureau announced that spots will be awarded to vendors that already hold contracts on the General Services Administration’s IT Schedule 70.

Bureau contracting officials have been scaling back the contract as they’ve gathered market research through requests for information and industry days. After initial rumors the contract would be split into multiple parts for services like cloud computing and cybersecurity, the bureau announced in April that ITSSS would remain a single contract made up of multiple tracks.

The track structure remains in the latest revision, however, the blanket purchase agreement will now only include vendors with pre-vetted tools and services being offered on Schedule 70, further narrowing the competitive pool.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/10/fbi-drops-full-and-open-competition-5-billion-it-recompete/152031/

A little commentary from the General Services Administration on our website urges government buyers to use the agency’s multiple-award schedule contracts.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is modernizing federal acquisition by consolidating the existing 24 Schedules into one single Schedule for products, services, and solutions.

The General Services Administration’s strategy for improving the federal marketplace in the coming years will rely on approximately 25 reforms, according to agency officials, but a handful of those will serve as the central points to shore up the rest of the strategy.

The Health and Human Services Department is looking to improve its acquisition processes and redundancies in departmentwide contracting by putting emerging technologies behind its data and the $24 billion it spends in goods and services each year.

The competitive pool for the FBI’s $5 billion IT commodity and services contract has been shrinking throughout the year and recently got even smaller.

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