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GSA releases RFQ for Centers of Excellence model to ‘deliver results far more easily’

March 13, 2019 By Andrew Smith

The General Services Administration has released a request for quotation for Phase One of its Center of Excellence discovery services, laying the groundwork for GSA to set up CoEs at new partner agencies.

Rather than rely on one contract for the discovery work at each agency, the blanket purchase agreement aims to allow GSA to find the vendor that best fits each agency’s unique needs.

“This BPA is intended to account for each future CoE Agency Partner by offering a means of initial and continuous discovery work, by Center need, considering the various different factors, influences, and context that apply to each Agency Partner’s organizational transformation needs,” the RFQ states.

The request, which was released Monday, comes about a month after GSA gathered industry feedback from its request for information.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition/2019/03/gsa-releases-rfq-for-centers-of-excellence-model-to-deliver-results-far-more-easily/

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: Centers for Excellence, consolidation, GSA, organizational transformation, RFQ, robotics

The devil’s in the details as GSA seeks to consolidate the Multiple Award Schedules

January 8, 2019 By Andrew Smith

The General Services Administration (GSA) will use the coming year to determine what its recently announced consolidated schedule will look like, according to the official leading the effort.

GSA announced in November the consolidation of 24 multiple award schedules into a single contract vehicle that federal agencies can use to purchase a range of more than 10 million products and services. Each year, agencies purchase about $30 billion worth of products — ranging from office supplies to various IT services — through GSA’s 24 schedules.

“Over this year, we’ll start the consolidation of the MAS program,” said Stephanie Shutt, director of the MAS Program Management Office, speaking at a recent GSA industry day.

Shutt said an integrated project team consisting of MAS members and officials from various acquisition centers and portfolios is doing much of the early work. This team will help make crucial decisions that could shape the single schedule.

For example, Shutt said they are reviewing all existing terms and conditions and determining where overlap exists among special item numbers, which generally categorize the kinds of good and services available. One goal, she said, would be to get rid of redundant or duplicitous conditions.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/12/devils-details-gsa-seeks-consolidate-multiple-award-schedules/153638/

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: consolidation, contracting vehicle, Federal Supply Schedule, GSA, GSA contract, GSA Schedule, IT, MAS, multiple award schedule, Schedules

Industry applauds acquisition consolidation, warns of work to be done

December 24, 2018 By Andrew Smith

Members of the private sector and industry-representing groups applauded the General Services Administration’s decision to consolidate the 24 multiple award schedules into a single acquisition vehicle, but cautioned that the agency would have to do much more than just consolidation to affect real change.

“Assuming all else stays the same, combining all of the [special item numbers] under one umbrella doesn’t necessarily alleviate the burden to negotiations and buyers,” said Julia Conti, contracts director at CGI Federal, at a Dec. 12 GSA industry day. “Making it easier is not necessarily keeping it on autopilot.”

According to Conti and other members of a panel at the event, the GSA is going to have to rework contracting language, examine a broader array of contracting vehicles and make efforts to reach out to both agencies and the workforce for the MAS consolidation to be truly effective.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2018/12/12/industry-applauds-acquisition-consolidation-warns-of-work-to-be-done/

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: consolidation, Federal Supply Schedule, GSA, GSA Schedule, MAS, multiple award schedule, Schedule, Schedules

Deal-making accelerates as federal contractors jockey for spending

March 1, 2018 By Andrew Smith

For the first time in a while, investors are betting big on “big government.”

The federal services market has experienced a jolt of dealmaking activity in recent months as companies position themselves to capture new government spending, breathing life into a sector that has been sluggish for years.

In late January, fast-growing technology contractor ECS Federal was bought for $775 million by On Assignment, a California-based recruiting firm with little experience in the federal market. In the same week, Lockheed Martin spinoff PAE bought the firm Macfadden & Associates in a move that was largely viewed as an effort to consolidate amid shifting budgets.

Meanwhile, Falls Church, Va.-based defense giant General Dynamics upped the ante last week when it announced a $6.8 billion agreement to buy CSRA, one of the largest government IT services firms. Also last week, two private equity firms added to their stable of federal contractors: Veritas Capital is acquiring the government business of PricewaterhouseCoopers; and Arlington Capital Partners is buying a small engineering services firm called Integrity Applications.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/dealmaking-accelerates-as-federal-contractors-jockey-for-spending/2018/02/18/1c707acc-1343-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: appropriations, consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, spending

Proposed contract bundling changes aim to increase small business contracting

August 4, 2015 By Andrew Smith

As required by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, on June 3, 2015, the FAR Council introduced a proposed change to the FAR contract bundling requirements. 80 Fed. Reg. 31,561-01. The proposed rule aims to improve small business participation in federal contracting by clarifying existing FAR regulations that discourage agency utilization of contracting bundling. The proposed rule would require increased reporting, parses the definitions of “bundling” and “consolidating” of contracts, and requires agencies to publicly justify their decisions to bundle requirements or consolidate contract vehicles. This definitional distinction between bundling of requirements and consolidation of contracts is intended to discourage agencies from combining unrelated requirements or contracts into a single award.

Under the proposed rule, agencies that bundle contracts or requirements in excess of $2 million will face greater notification and reporting requirements. If an agency wants to bundle two existing contracts, it must first notify small businesses at least 30 days beforehand of its intent to bundle its contracts. Agencies will also be required to provide public notice of the agency’s bundling policy and a list of and rationale for any bundled requirements for which the agency solicited offers or issued an award. If adopted, the proposal’s enhanced notification requirements may afford small business contractors an opportunity to protest an agency’s improperly bundled contracts.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/415754/Government+Contracts+Procurement+PPP/Proposed+Contract+Bundling+Changes+Aim+To+Increase+Small+Business+Contracting

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: bundling, consolidated contracts, consolidation, contract bundling, FAR, proposed rule, Small Business Jobs Act, unbundle

GSA issues RFP for office supplies contract

February 11, 2014 By ei2admin

The General Services Administration issued a request for proposals Jan. 31 for the third generation of its office supplies strategic sourcing contract.

The ability for agencies to purchase everyday supplies such as pens, paper and printing items from a single contract will save more than $155 million annually on reduced administrative costs and lower prices, according to GSA.

Proposals are due March 17.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20140131/ACQ01/301310010/GSA-issues-RFP-office-supplies-contract 

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: consolidated contracts, consolidation, costs, GSA, office supplies, pricing, strategic sourcing

SBA’s loan system troubles could complicate reorganization

February 15, 2012 By ei2admin

The Small Business Administration is behind schedule on five of six planned improvements to its Loan Management and Accounting Systems and costs for the overall project have risen about 20 percent since 2010 to $28 million, a recent Government Accountability Office report said.

That’s a common story with federal information technology acquisitions, which often run behind schedule and over budget. President Obama’s planned consolidation of SBA with several other business and trade agencies inside the Commerce Department could throw another cog in the wheels.

Major government reorganizations have a mixed track record of success, but one common feature, experts told Nextgov, is while the reorganization is in process, uncertainty rises.

“Often the [reorganization] process takes a lengthy period of time and during that period it’s difficult to deal with real issues and challenges in the agencies,” said Alan Balutis, a former chief information officer at the Commerce Department and now a director at Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group.

“It’s almost like you bifurcate staff and resources,” Balutis said. “One group works on the reorganization and integration and another group goes along doing their daily business and waiting for the day when someone pulls the switch and everything changes.”

During that transition period problems that already exist with a project or system can “linger and fester,” he said, because employees managing the project are unsure where the system will fit in the new organizational structure. Often those staffers also are unsure where they’ll fit in the new structure and, as a result, hesitant to make major decisions, he said.

“They’re working under uncertainty about ‘Where am I going to end up? Who am I going to be working for? How is this going to affect my grade and responsibilities?’ ” Balutis said. “And all of that is a distraction when you’re trying to carry on your regular duties.”

That’s not to say all acquisitions and projects will fare equally poorly during a bureaucratic transition.

“If you have [information technology] systems that are more enterprisewide, that support an agency function like, say, supply chain management or finance, those are likely to be more affected by reorganization,” said Raj Sharma, president of the Federal Acquisition Innovation and Reform Institute and author of a report on IT acquisition reform.

“If you’re looking at a mission-specific system, something that supports a critical program but we know it won’t be affected by reorganization, then there’s a higher degree of certainty,” Sharma said.

Programs also are less likely to fall into reorganizational paralysis if they’re being closely monitored by government leaders or the public, Sharma said.

That may bode well for SBA as Obama and Republican House leaders have spoken at length about the importance of small businesses to an economic recovery.

GAO’s review of SBA’s loan system was performed from February 2011 through January 2012, almost entirely before Obama announced his reorganization plan, Jan. 13. That plan will require congressional approval to be enacted, which may be tough to come by. It also involved elevating SBA to a Cabinet-level agency while the transition is in process.

A GAO spokesman declined to comment Thursday on how the proposed reorganization would affect problems with SBA’s Loan Management System saying it was beyond the scope of what the agency had looked at.

In its report, GAO criticized SBA officials for failing to validate that certain technical requirements had been met and for not identifying potential risks or taking steps to mitigate them. The agency also didn’t identify skills gaps on the project teams and didn’t get firm baselines from all contractors for how long the projects would take, GAO said.

“These weaknesses in basic management practices make it less likely that SBA will be able to complete the projects within the time, budget and scope parameters originally planned,” GAO said.

While Balutis is skeptical that major problems will be solved during the proposed SBA-Commerce reorganization, he supports the reorganization itself, which he said has been discussed for years in different forms. If done right, he said, the reorganization could save money and create useful cooperation between SBA and some units of Commerce that do similar work, such as the Minority Business Development Agency.

Balutis is cautiously optimistic that the reorganization can win congressional approval.

“There certainly hasn’t been much the White House and the Republican-controlled House has been able to agree upon over this last year and a half and probably the range of issues on which they agree is only going to narrow as we roll up to the election in November,” he said. “On the other hand, this does seem to strike the right chord. One thing a number of people agree on today is that we ought to rationalize the government. We ought to make it smaller and tighter to achieve savings. And that was a major premise of the White House announcement.”

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: Commerce Dept., consolidation, GAO, loans, MBDA, reorganization, SBA, technology

SBA, to be elevated to Cabinet level, is among agencies Obama wants consolidated

January 13, 2012 By ei2admin

On Friday, Jan 13, 2012, President Obama announced he will ask Congress for the power to merge six federal trade and commerce agencies, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The WSJ report said Obama will ask Congress for “reorganizational” power. The last president to have this power was Ronald Reagan.

The new power would allow the president to propose mergers in order to save money and make the government work more efficiently, according to the report.

The plan would allow Obama to propose mergers that would be “guaranteed an up-or-down vote from Congress within 90 days,” the report said.

The six agencies Obama wants to consolidate include the Commerce Department‘s core business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Trade and Development Agency.

The report cited a White House official who said the merger would save taxpayers around $3 billion over the next decade by eliminating duplicate overhead costs.

In addition, between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs would be eliminated through attrition, according to the WSJ.

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: budget cuts, Commerce Dept., consolidation, exporting, import, reorganization, SBA, trade assistance

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