DUNS | The Contracting Education Academy

September 4, 2018 By AMK

GSA taking bids for new contractor validation service

The General Services Administration has started the long-anticipated process to acquire new validation services for federal contractors and grantees.

The agency issued a request for proposals Friday (Aug. 31, 2018) seeking an identifier and unique numbering system for its Integrated Award Environment and System for Award Management to validate that companies or other organizations that do business with the government are who they say they are.

This comes ahead of the expiration this year of its current validation contract with Dun & Bradstreet.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/29638-2/

September 21, 2017 By AMK

Here’s how the government could better track contract spending

All legal entities in the world should subscribe to a common identification system, so the public can track their relationships, according to a new report.

Doing so could disrupt the monopoly Dun & Bradstreet has on the identification numbers contractors use to work with the federal government. But if the public and federal government want to better understand where money goes, they’re going to need to use a common identification system, the report from records giant Lexis Nexis and the Data Foundation, a government-transparency focused advocacy group, argued.

When government agencies track awards to contractors, they sometimes use their own identification systems for internal purposes. In the U.S., federal procurement officers also use Dun & Bradstreet’s “DUNS Number” to tag every contractor; those businesses are required to register for their own number through Dun & Bradstreet itself. But those contractors also use proprietary ID tags, and often both groups silo their identification system by the industry the business is in.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2017/09/heres-how-government-could-better-track-contract-spending/141012

April 4, 2017 By AMK

GSA’s new contract with Dun & Bradstreet draws mixed reaction

Last week’s announcement that the General Services Administration (GSA) had updated its Dun & Bradstreet contract will allow agency acquisition personnel and contractors wider latitude to use the standardized company information for purposes beyond mere identification.

But some transparency advocates consider the step insufficient.

In a Sept. 29 blog post, Kevin Youel Page, deputy commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, announced changes in the proprietary system for business identifiers in its Integrated Award Environment tracking system that are a “huge step forward in the goal to make data more accessible and readily available across government.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/10/gsas-new-contract-dun-bradstreet-draws-mixed-reaction/132205/

February 15, 2017 By AMK

GSA moves one step closer to replacing DUNS

The General Services Administration took an important step toward reducing its reliance on a proprietary business entity identifier system in government contracting.

The agency released a request for information on Feb. 13, 2017 in advance of the possible adoption of a new numbering system for “government-wide entity identification and validation services.”

Currently the federal contracting system relies on the Data Universal Numbering System, or DUNS number, from Dun & Bradstreet.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2017/02/13/gsa-duns-rfi.aspx

June 14, 2016 By AMK

Time is ripe to dump the DUNS, industry data group says

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seems to be exploring possible alternatives to the proprietary standard that agencies have used for decades to identify companies and organizations that win federal grants and contract awards.

omb OMB leaders indicated at a recent DATA Coalition summit that they will conduct an alternatives analysis to the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number, which the federal government uses through a contract with the company Dun & Bradstreet.

And the General Services Administration’s 18F team is developing an identification code that would temporarily help agencies move from the nine-digit DUNS number to another standard, according to Hudson Hollister, executive director for the DATA Coalition.

The costs and technical challenges of moving away from the DUNS to another system for identifying and tracking contractors would be simply too great, the Government Accountability Office said in 2012.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/open-datatransparency/2016/05/time-ripe-dump-duns-industry-data-group-says/

The General Services Administration has started the long-anticipated process to acquire new validation services for federal contractors and grantees.

All legal entities in the world should subscribe to a common identification system, so the public can track their relationships, according to a new report.

Last week’s announcement that the General Services Administration (GSA) had updated its Dun & Bradstreet contract will allow agency acquisition personnel and contractors wider latitude to use the standardized company information for purposes beyond mere identification.

The General Services Administration took an important step toward reducing its reliance on a proprietary business entity identifier system in government contracting.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seems to be exploring possible alternatives to the proprietary standard that agencies have used for decades to identify companies and organizations that win federal grants and contract awards.

Search this Website