Tag: Customer Service

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Good To Be Back to ITS….And The Better For It!

Serving GSA as the acting commissioner for the Federal Acquisition Service during the latter part of 2012 was an exhilarating ride. It provided a lens into just how important our role is in–and to–the government at all levels: federal, state and local.

I learned about and participated in a variety of initiatives and issues across GSA and many of our customer agencies. Whether it’s providing emergency support during weather emergencies like Hurricane Sandy or helping agencies consolidate space, GSA is fully dedicated to building a stronger, more sustainable government by delivering the best value and savings through partnerships and innovation.

With this new experience, I hope to better serve our customers and save the government money, especially as we deal with critical issues like sequestration, continuing resolutions, and tighter budgets. ITS, FAS, and GSA will play a vital role in helping move our government forward; we must help agencies make the best decisions possible.

I want to thank Kevin Youel Page, the Deputy Assistant Commissioner for ITS,  for keeping us on track while I was gone as we helped the government move towards areas like strategic sourcing for wireless services and devices, pick up the pace on cloud computing adoption, and launch new IT Commodity BPAs that can help save taxpayer and agency dollars.

It’s great to be back at ITS.  I return invigorated and continually dedicated to our customers. Armed with a greater knowledge, I am confident ITS can support government needs, deliver efficient operations, drive world-class value, and be recognized as agile and innovative.

I look forward to working with all of you to help us reach these goals.  Please come back next week….. as I plan to post some thoughts on managed mobility.

Have suggestions on how GSA can help you? Please share your ideas and comment below!

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Cloud and Data Center Consolidation – Bringing together the perfect couple

NOTE: Mary Davie is serving as the Acting Commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS). Her Deputy, Kevin Youel Page, has assumed the role of Acting Assistant Commissioner of the Integrated Technology Service (ITS) during this period.

As we move towards Cupid’s day, I thought it was appropriate to highlight the great work GSA is doing to nurture the budding relationship between Cloud Technology and Data Center Consolidation.

Over the past year, GSA partnered with 11 federal agencies to form an OMB sponsored working group–for a little couple’s therapy–to bridge the gap between the two. The team also engaged significant participation from numerous partners from our Alliant  GWAC industry group.

The goal of this working group was to develop five standardized Statement of Objective (SOO) templates for cloud migrations of applications and services modeled upon processes established by the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, with the objective of allowing agencies to “plug in” at any phase of the effort:  enterprise discovery, migration planning, migration, and responsible asset disposal.

By maximizing the power of these contract-agnostic SOOs for Cloud Migration Services, agencies can more easily and efficiently move legacy systems to the cloud and better plan for future development of new cloud applications and strategies.

This allows agencies to realize cost savings more quickly through increased acquisition efficiency, agility, and innovation.  It also decreases the time needed to retire duplicative or inefficient data centers.

As the federal government is navigating its way through the cloud, the effort to migrate services and applications to the cloud sometimes has felt like a rough first date. With cloud efforts taking place independently, the federal government has been missing significant opportunities to leverage best practices, and lessons learned. By bringing together federal cloud leaders and industry experts, we can work together to help solve these issues while saving time and reducing costs to the federal government.

Bringing these two initiatives closer together is a critical step towards a sustainable government. It allows agency CIOs to save money and focus on mission-enhancing technologies by shifting IT investments to more efficient computing platforms, accelerating data center consolidation, and clearly aligning data center consolidation with cloud computing.

Just like Cupid’s bow, our goal is to help government realize that we are better together than apart.

I encourage anyone preparing a cloud acquisition to make use of these documents as well as the programs and expertise GSA has to offer. If you have any questions about these documents or acquiring cloud, feel free to comment below or reach out to our cloud team at CloudPMO@gsa.gov.

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The Twelve Facts of HSPD-12

Physical and Cybersecurity are more critical than ever.  Identity management is an important part of securing our government facilities and data.

Identity management is addressed through HSPD-12, and we are often told how complex, expensive, and difficult to implement Personal Identity Verification (PIV) credentialing solutions.

Periodically stories emerge, often from agencies in the throes of implementing HSPD-12 or OMB Memorandum 11-11, that FAS’s PIV card offering is either too expensive or not flexible enough to meet the agency’s needs.

GSA’s USAccess Managed Service offering is over 5 years old. It’s time to take stock of some facts.

In the spirit of the season, I present “The Twelve Facts of HSPD-12”:

    1. GSA serves all of government: GSA has 99 customer agencies participating.
    2. No agency is too big or too small: These agencies range from 3 to 115,000 cardholders.
    3. No agency is too complex: We have experience in deployment and onboarding processes across complex agency structures, geographically diverse locations, and widely different operating environments.
    4. We have the experience: USAccess has completed credential issuance for over 800,000 Personal Identification Verification Cards.
    5. We offer breadth of service: USAccess offers a full range of services needed to support the PIV lifecycle, including certificate re-key, credential reissuance, and renewal.
    6. We value transparency: The cost of cards can easily be calculated at www.fedidcard.gov.
    7. We calculate total cost of ownership: The website not only contains cost figured for basic enrollment and maintenance, but also enrollment station infrastructure costs that can be matched to an agency’s need.
    8. We are affordable: Total annualized program costs for agency
      customers (including all PIV issuance infrastructure, system development, card issuance, and lifecycle maintenance from the GSA USAccess team) are under $40 per card holder.
    9. We offer a Shared Service: Individual agencies can save further and get “Shared First” credit with OMB by sharing the enrollment infrastructure with other agencies.
    10. We continue to compare prices: GSA continues to do research regarding deployment and startup costs for agencies and has never found an individual agency with a lower cost to deploy and operate.
    11. We save the government money: Most agencies pay between 4 and 9 times more doing this themselves!
    12. We encourage others to share information: The next time you hear “I can do it cheaper myself!” please engage us in dialogue that may help us improve our services and the services we offer to the federal government.

While I don’t think this would do very well as a holiday song, I hope it clarifies some common misconceptions of our HSPD-12 program. If you have any questions about our HSPD-12 or any other identity, credentialing, or access management offering, please visit gsa.gov/hspd12 for more information. From all of us here in ITS, I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year.

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Speeding up the Fast Track – Coming in First for Customer Service

In April, President Obama issued Executive Order 13571, “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service”, requiring agencies to create and publish customer service plans. In line with that directive, GSA recently published its own customer service plan.

As we implement our plan, I want to share some of the ways in which we at ITS are already improving customer service. As I see it, we are on an exciting ongoing journey that directly involves our customer agencies and industry partners. Making this journey as easy and fast as possible will require three things:

  • a passion for delivering results and value
  • a willingness to take on new perspectives, and
  • frequent, open, and honest communication.

Delivering Results and Value to Customers

ITS is the federal government’s largest and most experienced IT acquisition partner. Our unique relationship with other government agencies and industry partners gives us the opportunity to create value for both our customers and for taxpayers. We work closely with most federal agencies and the best vendors in government IT, so we can share, reuse, and leverage best practices.

We help agencies identify and aggregate their shared needs, providing value that isn’t available through in-house procurement. Our partnership with GSA’s Office of Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS) means that agencies can get support across the entire acquisition lifecycle to ensure that requirements are met on time, within budget, and with reduced risk.

We also reduce acquisition risk by setting up flexible, innovative contract vehicles, and working hand-in-glove with agencies and industry to define and meet requirements. This past year we solicited direct agency and industry involvement in our new cloud offerings, future telecommunications contracts, our new IT commodity program, and USAccess (HSPD-12). This collaboration has already shown positive results, including the release of the RFQ for our upcoming FSSI Wireless program.

Adopting a Different Perspective

Sometimes the best way to move forward is to see things from a different angle. By taking on our customers’ perspective, we at GSA are able to pave the way for industry to seamlessly deliver and implement IT solutions for government. Industry then has incentives to point out where GSA can improve and to share their commercial customer service best practices.

Customers also benefit from thinking big—when your agency identifies a need for a new method or procurement process, think about how other agencies could participate in a shared solution. Come talk to us. You may be surprised at what we can do, or what we already have in the works.

Increasing and Expanding Communication

To develop this broader perspective, we’re reaching out with new ways to engage customers and industry. Our efforts dovetail with President Obama’s direction to advance customer service through innovative technology.

Over the past six months, we’ve done this in a variety of ways, such as posting draft RFIs and RFQs on the BetterBuy wiki to solicit input on our FSSI Wireless and Network Services 2020 programs. We have employed two-way communications channels, such as our Twitter account, this blog, and community websites, enhancing industry’s and customers’ access to ITS and to each other. We are also overhauling our web presence to better explain our offerings and make it easier to find information. Together, these initiatives should make our initial conversations with customers more productive and meaningful.

As we create and update these tools and channels, please use them and tell us what you think. We are asking you to give us your honest assessment before, during, and after we work together. We always want to know what we could be doing better so that we remain the government’s trusted go-to resource for all of their IT and telecommunications needs.

Let me know how we’re doing by leaving a comment here or reaching me on Twitter.

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Buys into the Cloud

I’m thrilled to announce that the Department of Homeland Security has awarded the first task order using GSA’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA). DHS is consolidating and migrating many of its primary public websites to the cloud to reduce costs and comply with the Administration’s Cloud First policy. To accomplish this, they awarded a five-year, $5 million contract to CGI Federal Inc. CGI is one of four companies – Apptis Inc., Computer Literacy World, and Eyak Tech LLC are the others – that now have an Authority to Operate (ATO) on this streamlined, pre-competed contract. We are currently working with the remaining eight vendors to complete the ATO process by year-end. The ATOs are processed in accordance with NIST 800-37 and 800-53 (rev 3) and can be accepted by any federal agency for cloud storage, virtual machines, and web hosting at the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Moderate Impact Level or lower.

So what does all of this really mean? In short, it means GSA’s IaaS BPA is “open for business.” The flexibility of our BPA gives federal, state, local and tribal governments faster, easier access to a host of infrastructure offerings, including cloud storage, web hosting and virtual machines. These are technologies that will greatly reduce infrastructure maintenance costs and make government more efficient and cost effective. GSA’s IaaS BPA provides cloud solutions with reduced procurement time and risk to help agencies comply with the OMB’s Cloud First policy and data center consolidation initiatives. And the ATOs demonstrate that customers using these services meet federal cybersecurity requirements.

Most importantly, the award demonstrates DHS’s confidence in GSA’s IT acquisition expertise. From self-service e-Tools to step-by-step assistance throughout the entire procurement process, we are committed to providing our customers with the level of service they should expect from their best friend in government, GSA.  The Service Line Managers in our cloud services office are available to assist agencies with market research, requirements development, service level agreements and other aspects of putting together their cloud acquisitions.  This service is available not only for our BPAs, but any suitable ITS acquisition vehicle, such as Alliant. More comprehensive assistance for agency cloud acquisitions is also available through the FAS Office of Assisted Acquisition Services.

Finally, let me give a “shout out” to my staff in ITS, our colleagues in Dave McClure’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies (OCSIT), OMB, and our federal agency partners who’ve worked so hard to develop these innovative solutions for cloud services. These contracts truly put Administrator Johnson’s description of GSA as a “proving ground for innovation” into action and I’m thrilled at the outcome.

Need more info on GSA’s Cloud IT Solutions and cloud policy efforts? Check out the Cloud IT Services page and info.apps.gov.

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Perseverance, Innovation, and Keeping it Simple

For the first time ever, GSA combined its Expo and Network Services Conference. This year’s events took place in San Diego, California, and were well attended by over 7,000 government and partner company employees.

GSA kicked Expo off a bit differently this year—Steve Wozniak spoke to us about his journey as co-founder of Apple Computers.

A couple of things really struck me in his talk:

  • First, it was obvious he was born to build the Macintosh; his passion for logic and electrons is innate.
  • Second, his perseverance is immutable. He continually sought to innovate, learn and improve every time he undertook a new project.
  • Last, it’s clear that the genius of real innovation is simplicity.

The key message for GSA is this:

Passion + Perseverance + Innovation + Simplicity = products and services that customers love.

Harnessing Passion and Perseverance for Innovation

Having been at GSA for nearly 25 years, I can honestly attest to the passion and perseverance of our employees and industry partners. We need to harness that energy to achieve simple, more innovative products and services.

In the federal IT acquisition world, that means easy-to-use and easy-to-modify acquisition processes. It means just-in-time access to the cutting-edge technology needed to keep our phones ringing, mouses clicking and our cyber borders secure. It means solutions, not just contracts, at the click of a button.

The way we get there is through better communication, collaboration and idea sharing.

My Customer and Industry Listening Tour

I’ve been on the road a lot lately, speaking at conferences and symposia on the merits and challenges of the federal IT acquisition space—this is the government’s version of wedding season. So, in San Diego, I spent a lot of time just listening to customers and industry partners talk about our current IT products and services line-up and the future of government IT.

I want to know how we can improve, where technology is heading, and how we can better work together. For both sides, the message was clear: Continue to innovate and make things simpler. That’s exactly what we are working on as we continue planning for the future.

Streamlining Customer Service

It struck me that our Expo is a natural result of President Obama’s latest Executive Order–Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service. GSA is all about customer service, but we should be—and are—following private-sector best practices, using self-service options, and reducing the need for customer inquiries. We—not only the federal government, but GSA—must streamline our customer service for more efficient public engagement.

Share your ideas with us on our BetterBuy wiki site.

Thanks again to everyone for joining us at Expo and the Network Services Conference and thanks for your continued partnership with GSA.

We hope to see you next year in San Antonio, May 15-17. In the interim, let us know how we can make the event and how we can serve you even better.