Contractors had their doubts when the General Services Administration sun-setted FedBizOpps, the dated web site where agencies listed federal opportunities. The General Services Administration replaced it with a system called Beta.Sam.gov. According to Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, contractors are finding the new system isn’t much better than the old, and in some ways worse.
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The General Services Administration has begun the process of updating pre-existing contracts to meet the terms and conditions of its recently consolidated acquisition schedule.
GSA consolidated 24 schedules for finding and purchasing solutions into one Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) on Oct. 1 to modernize acquisition for federal, state and local agencies.
New contracts are placed on the consolidated schedule, while pre-existing contracts must be modified to be placed on the consolidated schedule — the second phase of the process known as Mass Modification. Schedule holders have until July 31 to accept the Mass Mod that GSA started issuing Friday, or else their offerings will no longer be accessible on GSA’s eTools platform.
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In addition to Federal Supply Schedule consolidation, GSA is replacing the official identifier federal government contractors use. Specifically, GSA is transitioning from and will stop using the Dun & Bradstreet (“D&B”) proprietary system for verification and validation of entities registering to do business with the federal government. Effective December 2020, GSA intends to have transitioned all government systems away from using D&B Data Universal Numbering System numbers (“DUNS”) and instead using new Unique Entity Identifiers (“UEI”). The UEI is a new, nonproprietary identifier that will be assigned through GSA’s System for Award Management (“SAM”) registration process.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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As some of you may already know, the Federal Business Opportunities website – commonly referred to as “FedBizOpps” or “FBO” – is not going to be around much longer. The site will be decommissioned by November 8th of this year, with the site’s “critical functionality” being moved over to/merged with the System for Award Management (“SAM”) as early as first quarter 2020. However, we are not talking about the same old SAM that contractors may be used to; FBO’s functions will be moved over to a new system at beta.SAM.gov
According to a fact sheet issued by the GSA, “one the transition is complete, beta.SAM.gov will have the same federal business opportunity capabilities that are found today in FBO.gov.” You will still be able to follow contract opportunities, and save searches, but the processes used to do so (and the related terminology) might vary slightly. The new system will also boast some improvements over the old flawed-but-familiar FedBizOpps, including…
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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.
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