This is the third in a series of posts regarding the General Services Administration’s (“GSA”) consolidation of its federal supply schedules into one schedule contract. Our prior posts addressed GSA’s consolidation process in general and its use of Category Management in constructing the consolidated schedule. Here, we answer common industry questions regarding what is and is not changing as a result of schedule consolidation.
Continue reading at: Government Contracts Navigator
This is the second in a series of blogs regarding the General Services Administration’s (“GSA”) Multiple Award Schedule consolidation. Previously, we addressed GSA’s three phases of consolidation. In this post, we focus on certain fundamental, structural changes to the consolidated schedule made during Phase I.
Category Management Comes to the GSA Federal Supply Schedule Program
Generally speaking, GSA’s restructuring can be labeled Category Management. Over the last year, the GSA Category Management Leadership Council and the Office of Management and Budget developed a government-wide category structure to support category management implementation across the federal government.
Continue reading at: Blank Rome’s Government Contracts Navigator
Fiscal year 2020, which coincides with calendar year 2020, started off busy on the federal contracting front. Dan Snyder, the director of government contracts at Bloomberg Government, joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for a look ahead.
Listen to the podcast at: Federal News Network
2020 may prove to be one of the most active years for federal contractors holding General Services Administration (“GSA”) Federal Supply Schedule (“FSS”) contracts and certain federal contractor registration requirements managed by GSA. This post is the first of a series on GSA’s changes and addresses GSA’s most publicized action—the consolidation of its federal supply schedules into one schedule.
As promised, in October 2019, GSA released a solicitation that consolidated the solicitations for its 24 federal supply schedules into one solicitation to obtain an FSS contract. GSA’s consolidation involves three Phases.
Phase I applies to companies that do not already hold an FSS contract. Phase I was the release of the consolidated solicitation for use by companies seeking to obtain a new schedule contract. On October 1, 2019, GSA released the consolidated solicitation.
Continue reading at: Blank Rome
The U.S. General Services Administration is hosting its FAST 2020 training conference in Atlanta, GA, from April 14-16, 2020. We are thrilled that GSA selected Atlanta for this wonderful event.
According to GSA’s website, participating Industry Partners will:
Detailed information on the conference can be found here: https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/organization/federal-acquisition-service/customer-and-stakeholder-engagement/federal-acquisition-service-training-fast-conference
Date: April 14-16, 2020
Location: Atlanta Georgia World Congress Center, 285 Andrew Young International Blvd NW, Atlanta, GA 30313
Registration is required. You can register here: https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/organization/federal-acquisition-service/customer-and-stakeholder-engagement/federal-acquisition-service-training-fast-conference
After receiving more than one thousand comments from industry and other stakeholders, on October 1, 2019, the General Services Administration (GSA) issued a solicitation for a single, consolidated Schedule as part of its project to combine its 24 existing Multiple Award Schedules (MAS), also referred to as Federal Supply Schedules (FSS), into one. It is an important step towards the agency’s goal of simplifying and reducing duplication in its Schedules program, through which more than $30 billion is spent annually on commercial goods and services. However, much work remains before such a goal can be realized.
This update provides an overview of GSA Schedules consolidation, the timeline for its implementation, and key areas that Schedule contractors should be prepared to track in the coming months.
Continue reading at: Perkins Coie
This week, GSA announced it is on track to debut its Consolidated Multiple Acquisition Schedule (MAS) Program Schedule Solicitation on October 1. GSA also gave federal contractors planning to bid on the MAS a head start on the process by releasing a final draft solicitation and an updated industry FAQs sheet. Let’s take a look at how to utilize this opportunity to prepare for the solicitation’s long-awaited debut.
GSA’s MAS Program “establishes long-term Government-wide contracts with commercial firms to provide government buyers with access to a wide variety of commercial supplies, services, and solutions.” GSA first announced its plan to modernize this Program “by consolidating its 24 Multiple Award Schedules into one single Schedule for products and services” on November 27, 2018. GSA aimed to “simplify the buying and selling experience for customers, suppliers, and acquisition professionals.” Over the past ten months, GSA conducted extensive market research and collected industry-wide feedback regarding its consolidation strategies, the new single solicitation format, and the streamlined terms and conditions.
GSA recently announced its plans to publish the Consolidated MAS Program Solicitation on FedBizOpps on October 1, so now’s the time to become familiar with the effects of the consolidation.
Continue reading at: SmallGovCon
GSA has posted an announcement of its intention to consolidate the current 24 Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) and release a new single Schedule for product, services, and solutions on October 1, 2019. You can find more information on the GSA’s Interact website including what to expect after the consolidated schedule is released.
On October 1, 2019, GSA will publish the new, consolidated, solicitation on FedBizOpps along with applicable attachments. The FBO package will contain:
You can read more on the GSA Interact website.
The General Services Administration plans to remove a special contract category for agencies’ purchase of used or refurbished technology during its ongoing schedules consolidation.
The problem with the category — which GSA refers to as a special item number or SIN — for reselling tech is twofold. Fraudsters are impersonating agencies placing IT orders, spoofing small businesses into sending used hardware to empty warehouses where the equipment is intercepted and sold on the black market without the bill ever being paid.
There have also been cases where the used or refurbished tech, although sold properly through the category, is counterfeit or has been altered in some way that doesn’t meet government standards, leaving agencies open to supply chain risks
There are “clear signs” small businesses are being phished by fraudsters, Lawrence Hale, a director within the GSA Federal Acquisition Service, said at the 930gov conference Tuesday. In the latter case, he said, it’s “essentially a supply chain attack.”
GSA’s best course of action, Hale said, is to shut the SIN down.
Continue reading at: Fedscoop
Government contractors see promise in the General Services Administration’s plan to consolidate the current 24 multiple award schedules into a single schedule over the next couple years, according to preliminary results from the agency’s request for information on the plan, released Aug. 1.
The current system requires agencies using the program to purchase certain goods and services from pre-negotiated contracts that have been separated by topic areas, such as human capital, information technology and professional services.
GSA announced in late 2018 that they would begin the process of consolidating the schedules, citing problems with the current system that sometimes require agencies to purchase multiple services off of different schedules to complete a single project.
For example, an agency looking to reform its call center might have to make purchases off of an IT schedule for new technology, the professional services schedule for a consulting solution and the office management schedule for the call center’s furniture and carpeting. The agency would then have to cobble together the purchases from those separate schedules into a single project.
According to the RFI’s preliminary results, approximately 88 percent of those that responded to the request agreed that the proposed format would benefit both industry and federal agency customers, while 94 percent agreed that the proposed format was clear to understand.
Continue reading at: Federal Times
