Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

What tech trends to expect in FY18

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Earlier this year, Washington Technology shared four technology trends that it predicted would take shape in 2017: IT modernization, the digital connect, data security and intelligence-driven enterprise. Now as we enter the next federal fiscal year, the publication is checking in to see how those predictions have fared – and share some thoughts about what will happen next.

Under the new administration, the most significant trend we’ve seen take shape is not just about leveraging technology to better streamline service delivery, but enabling efficiencies and cost savings across the federal government while doing so.

Since the president’s proposed 2018 budget has not yet been approved, and agencies will likely be working with extensions for a few months at least – not to mention the looming possibility of sequestration, we envision that the focus will remain on investing in, and deploying, and applying technologies that drive outcomes while reducing costs.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2017/10/26/insights-parameswaran-2018-tech-trends.aspx

Tech group calls on President-elect to assess IT vulnerabilities, lower acquisition barriers

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iticThe federal government needs to assess its IT infrastructure and address cybersecurity, modernization and assessment reform as equal, intertwined priorities, suggests the IT Alliance for Public Sector, a division of advocacy and policy organization for the Information Technology Industry Council.

In a letter sent to President-elect Donald Trump, ITAPS declares that its membership — which includes hardware, software, services and solutions companies — is dedicated to working with the new administration to improve government operations and efficiency and reduce wasteful spending on aging inventory. ITAPS hopes that a review of procurement regulations and workaround programs (Digital Services, 18F, DIUx, etc.) will ease barriers to acquiring commercial technologies.

“The federal government spent $80 billion on IT systems last year. Shockingly, 80 percent was spent maintaining costly, vulnerable IT systems that many American taxpayers would expect to see in a Smithsonian collection,” said ITAPS Senior Vice President for Public Sector Trey Hodgkins, who signed the letter to Trump.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/articles/tech-group-calls-on-trump-to-assess-it-vulnerabilities-lower-acquisition-barriers

See the full set of ITIC’s recommendations here: http://www.itic.org/dotAsset/b/b/bb2f1b1e-2a9a-4a8a-ad9a-7aa41a046e3d.pdf

‘National dialogue’ called for on contract reporting costs

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The General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are facilitating a ‘national dialogue’ to discuss ideas on how to reduce the costs associated with reporting compliance under Federal awards, including contracts, subcontracts, grants, subgrants, and cooperative agreements.

The GSA/HHS notice is posted at: 80 Fed. Reg. 17438.

The dialogue is part of an effort to improve the economy and efficiency of the federal award system by identifying impactful steps that can be used to streamline reporting, reduce burden, and reduce costs.

Interested parties may participate in the national dialogue through an online platform by reviewing the information and participation dates posted at www.cao.gov.  The dialogue will open on May 30, 2015 and close on May 30, 2017.

Government contractor profits continue to rise

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While the federal contracting industry is by no means recovered, the future looks a good deal brighter than it did just a few months ago.

The two-year budget agreement has partially mitigated the impact of sequestration and greatly reduced the risk of a government shutdown. The agreement brought some stability and predictability to a market that has been starved of both for several years.

Each year, Deltek conducts a Clarity study assessing critical business metrics in the government contracting industry, such as growth rates and profit margins, plus operating metrics and trends, in areas such as business development, program management and financial operations.

The early results reflect the improved outlook resulting from the budget resolution. Yet, as one would expect, certain financial metrics — such as profits, mergers and acquisitions and win rates — reflect the difficult year that was 2013.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/deltek-contractor-profits-continue-to-rise/2014/03/14/e2f0ffc0-a8ab-11e3-8d62-419db477a0e6_story.html 

How to reduce the growing number of bid protests

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With bid protests increasing by almost 50 percent since 2008, many industry observers and policymakers may be tempted to place the blame for procurement slowdown — particularly in the defense industry — squarely on the contractors. Yet to do so to the exclusion of the other key player in this equation — the Defense Department — ignores that bid protests have proliferated largely as a result of the way government does business.

It may be the case that some government contractors file frivolous protests in order to hang onto a contract they once held but subsequently lost, or in an effort to extract concessions from the government, such as the opportunity to start or continue work while the protest is resolved. However, bid protests are a game of high-stakes poker for most contractors. Protests are expensive, and protestors are prohibited from billing their protest costs against their contracts.

Even if the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustains a protest (and awards the successful protestor its protest costs), a contractor may still need to go through the bidding process all over again, and there is no guarantee that it will win the second time around. In addition, the GAO retains the power to summarily dismiss a protest it deems frivolous, ultimately rendering any effort put into filing a protest a waste of resources. In other words, bid protests do not just slow down the government; they also slow down business for contractors.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.defenseone.com/management/2013/08/how-reduce-growing-number-bid-protests/68582/ 

Comments on veteran-owned small business rules sought by July 12

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The Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) has published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) seeking comments to “improve the regulations to provide greater clarity, to streamline the program, and to encourage more VOSBs to apply for verification.”

VOSBs are veteran-owned small businesses, including service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs).

According to the ANPR, the VA is seeking to “find an appropriate balance between preventing fraud in the Veterans First Contracting Program and providing a process that would make it easier for more VOSBs to become verified.”

The VA’s initiatives on behalf of VOSBs have been both lauded and criticized.  Early in the VOSB program, critics charged that the standards were lax, resulting in fraudulent misrepresentations by firms not truly owned or controlled by veterans.  In separate investigations, both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the VA’s Office of Inspector General (IG) found numerous instances of fraud.   In seeking to take corrective action however, the VA currently is subjected to much criticism by veterans themselves who complain that the verification procedures are onerous and hard to understand.  Under current rules, legitimate VOSB who have been rejected by the VA must wait six months before reapplying for verification.

In response, the VA is now considering ways to improve the VOSB Verification Guidelines.  The VA has already collected suggestions from a wide range of sources for changes to the regulations, and has compiled them into a single document. This compilation document and the existing regulations can both be found at http://www.va.gov/osdbu/veteran/vapVAB.asp

The VA invites public comments on the ideas offered in the compilation document as well as on eight specific questions posed in the ANPR.

The Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC) encourages all VOSBs and SDVOSBs to read the ANPR and submit comments, ideas and suggestions.  You can download the two-page ANPR here: Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – VOSB Verification Guidelines – 38CFR Part 74.

Comments are due by July 12, 2013.

Big firms edge out small businesses for billions in awards

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Major U.S. companies including General Dynamics Corp. and Medtronic Inc. have received billions of dollars in federal government contracts that were supposed to go to small businesses

The BGOV Barometer shows that about $4.74 billion, or 45 percent, of more than $10.6 billion targeted for small businesses under government acquisition rules were won by bigger competitors in the year that ended Sept. 30, 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Companies that need the revenue the most are losing opportunities, said Margot Dorfman, chief executive officer of the Washington-based U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce.

“I think this particular issue should be one of the top concerns of the Small Business Administration and the president,” Dorfman said in an interview. “Fix it now. Let’s not wait.”

Keep reading this article at: http://about.bgov.com/2012/11/13/big-firms-edge-out-small-for-billions-in-awards-bgov-barometer/ 

 

Signs of friction in contractor-government relations

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Contractor relationships with federal auditors and contracting officers
deteriorated somewhat during the past year as government agencies scaled back
programs in an effort to reduce the budget deficit, according to a recent
survey.

A separate study released Thursday found that large companies were securing a
high percentage of federal contracts set aside for small businesses. In the 17th Annual Government Contractor Industry Survey released Monday by Grant Thornton LLP, contractor relationships with auditors were rated
either fair or poor by 19 percent of surveyed companies, up from 11 percent the
previous year. Relationships with contracting officers were rated fair or poor
by 10 percent of respondents, double the previous year’s total.

Only 22 percent of respondents said the government resolved contract disputes
efficiently, a drop from previous surveys.

Revenue from government contracts during the past year grew for 50 percent of
the companies, was flat for 21 percent and declined for 29 percent, the survey
found. “The fact that the highest percentage of companies experienced revenue
growth continues a long-term trend reported in previous surveys, indicating that
government contractors are far less vulnerable than commercial companies to
recessions or slow growth in the overall economy,” Grant Thornton analysts
said.

“However, the 29 percent of companies experiencing revenue reductions is the
highest percentage reported in several surveys, indicating that government
efforts to reduce deficits are adversely impacting government contractor
revenue.”

The survey went out to an unspecified number of companies, in 24 states, that
depend primarily on federal contracts; most of them are for-profit and
two-thirds provide services to the Defense Department. Forty-six percent are
small businesses.

The survey also found that profits improved slightly from the previous year.
The biggest cost factor within these firms was executive compensation, and
survey analysts said they disagreed with the methods the Defense Contract Audit
Agency uses in determining whether to allow such costs.

“While government contracting has never been a model of efficiency, it is our
view that the decline in efficiency and business relationships during the past
few years can be traced directly to changes in DCAA policy adopted after
[Government Accountability Office] reports were issued in July 2008 and
September 2009,” they wrote.

“Unfortunately, the GAO criticized the DCAA for having a management and
agency culture that focused on a production-oriented mission, emphasizing the
need for timeliness in supporting the needs of contracting officers in the
procurement process,” the survey said.

Regarding the average time for contractors to collect accounts receivable
from the government, results showed the period was less than 30 days for 21
percent of survey participants, while 60 percent reported receivables were
collected within 30 to 60 days. The remaining 19 percent reported waiting more
than 60 days.

The average win rate on proposals submitted in a competitive environment was
30 percent.

On the topic of revenue by type of contract, the companies said, on average,
45 percent of revenue was from cost-reimbursable contracts and 35 percent was
from time-and-materials contracts. The remaining 20 percent was from firm
fixed-price contracts.

When asked how often they were required to perform out-of-scope work without
a contract modification, 81 percent said frequently or occasionally. Only 16
percent said they refused such requests.

A separate contracting study by the Petaluma, Calif.-based American Small Business
League found that of the top 100 companies receiving federal small business
contracts, 72 were large companies that “significantly exceed” the Small
Business Administration’s small business size standards; only 24 were
“legitimate small business,” the league said.

The large companies — among them Lockheed Martin Corp., Rolls-Royce, Boeing
Co., General Dynamics and Blue Cross Blue Shield — accounted for $16 billion of
the $21 billion total for the top 100, the study found.

– by Charles S. Clark, Government Executive, February 23, 2012 at
http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2012/02/signs-friction-contractor-government-relations/41283

White House to buy office supplies in bulk to cut costs

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The same week President Obama will unveil his proposal to cut the national deficit, his White House will begin its own efficiency efforts — starting with office supplies.

Hoping to trim $600 million in the next four years, several federal agencies and departments will start pooling their purchases of office printers, copiers, and scanners, administration officials told The Washington Post.   Starting this week, the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice,  and Treasury, as well as the Social Security Administration, are slated to begin  buying these items in bulk from 11 firms. The supplier list includes both larger companies like Canon and Lexmark, and some smaller, veteran- or  minority-owned suppliers, The Post reports.

This plan will also force departments to closely scrutinize their equipment stocks. “One of the things we’ve discovered is that agencies don’t have a clue what they have,” Dan Gordon, the Obama administration’s top federal contracting official, told The Post. “They don’t realize how many cellphones and BlackBerrys they have.”

Up next on the White House’s bulk-buying campaign: reining in spending on wireless service contracts. An additional $170 million could be saved annually if departments renegotiate their deals or merge several plans, according to Jeffrey Zients, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

— by Sara Sorcher – National Journal – September 19, 2011 – http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=48826&dcn=e_tma

Will Panetta’s DOD strategy be about more than just cuts?

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When the current director of the CIA Leon Panetta takes over as President Obama’s next defense secretary his top priority will be cutting the defense budget — but he should do it in a way that reshapes U.S. defense strategy, according to an analysis by Wired magazine’s “Danger Room, ” a blog concentrating on national security.

The plus for contractors in the IT space is that such a shift will put more emphasis on cyber and information dominance.

Critics of outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates complain that his emphasis on efficiency savings doesn’t address fundamental questions about what the U.S. defense strategy should be.

Strategy needs to be the driver, if budget cuts are to make sense, Spencer Ackerman writes in “Danger Room.”  Read this article now at: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/panettas-excellent-pentagon-adventure-cut-cash-rewrite-strategy/#more-48572

— June 8, 2011, Washington Technology

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