Government Acquisition

May 1, 2013January 11, 2024

FY14 IT Budget: Our Run to Daylight

The release of President Obama’s FY14 Budget reinforces the fact that many government agencies’ reduced IT spending budgets continue to decrease. However, agencies must still deliver enhanced missions to serve the American people. Therefore, we must work smarter than ever — together — to deliver better value and savings.

While the FY14 budget nudges up IT spending slightly, a closer look shows many agencies actually face reduced or flat spending, yet missions continue to grow and demands continue to expand.

This does not deter us, but inspires us. It allows us to be creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative. But how do we succeed? How do we ensure budget constraints and pressure from sequestration are not missed opportunities?

Noted football coach Vince Lombardi was famous for his running-to-daylight offense where offensive linemen blocked areas en masse and the running back ran toward any opening created. This was the key to gaining football yardage and, ultimately, victory.

With spending cuts in play, government needs to find the openings (opportunities) to turn the game around. The quicker we run in that direction, the better chance we have to be champions.

Spend Less; Spend Smarter

Our shared goals are simple: Deliver cost-effective best value to the American taxpayer. We must use shared resources to work more efficiently, spend smarter, reduce duplication, and decrease costs.

In government IT, we already have proven winning game plans:

1. Agency Deep Dives. Enterprise-wide, agencies can often find areas to improve IT collaboration and system sharing. Agency IT deep dive teams that explore cost-saving options and enhance enterprise-wide cooperation make sense now more than ever.

GSA’s Acting Administrator consolidated all our IT personnel, budgets, and systems under GSA’s Chief Information Officer. We’ve also had huge success internally with our Great Ideas Hunt (generating $5 million in savings so far). We rolled it outside the agency to search for other great ideas we can use to save money and deliver solutions better.

2. Strategic Sourcing. Agencies have been looking at better ways to cooperate and benefit from work done by other agencies to drive down government operating costs. We need to help them do that faster. We must share and use contracts where much of the acquisition effort and cost are already completed.

We are enhancing current contracts to make it easier for customers to find and order services and faster to modify, customize, and add to existing contracts. We are implementing agile and innovative solutions to increase the speed for agencies to reap the benefits of technologies like cloud computing, cybersecurity, and telecommunications.

These solutions, like our upcoming strategic sourcing wireless contract, also help drive down costs. We are working with partners and inter-agency working groups to make solutions and services like managed mobility, network services, and cloud brokerage more accessible and convenient for all agencies to use. We aim to drive cost-effectiveness and world-class value government-wide.

3. GSA IT Savings Report. Do you ever get reports from your utility company about how your home energy efficiency compares to your neighbors? I just got one the other day. It’s confidential between me and the utility…. but how in the world can my energy use be so much more than all the other homes in my community? How can I do better?

GSA stands ready to work with your agency to explore ways our IT solutions can help you reduce costs, minimize duplications and redundancies, and save your budget dollars by leveraging our investment to set up contracts and acquisition vehicles, so you don’t have to. We can leverage your past vendor successes and bring more partner opportunities to the mix.

Our job is to help support you to focus on your missions while maintaining quality and reducing costs. Be sure to contact GSA (check our technology site on gsa.gov for our contact number). We have a team of resources to help you.

We’re committed to help government as a whole save $2.1B in government IT costs every year. This savings will go a long way to help reduce the budget deficit and help agencies to maximize their IT dollars. All of us are going to have to re-think and re-imagine how we do things – together.

Please share comments or additional ideas in the comments section below, or follow us on Twitter @GSA_ITS to join the conversation.

March 26, 2013January 11, 2024

Managed Mobility: Game On

Think of GSA’s Managed Mobility Program as having two VIP players working together to give government a slam dunk when it comes to increased access to cost-effective wireless devices and services and enterprise-wide mobility, data, and applications management.

The two key players are Managed Mobility and FSSI Wireless. You’ve heard a lot about FSSI Wireless’s steady progress and what immense value it will bring to government.

GSA’s Managed Mobility Program promises the same benefits.

First though, for those of you who have been glued to your television for “March Madness,” I want to thank you for tearing yourself away for a few minutes to read this blog! But in case I lose you before you finish reading, let me make this one quick point: While you are zombie-eyed watching the college basketball championships this month and knee deep in stats, brackets, and upsets, GSA and our cross-government Managed Mobility working group partners are busy evaluating responses due March 8th to our Request for Technical Capabilities, so that over the next month we can deliver a managed mobility win for government.

Blending Mobile into Enterprise-Wide IT
The challenge: Managed mobility is an emerging need of the federal government as our workforces and users increasingly demand mobile access and applications. Allowing agencies to better and more cohesively manage all aspects of mobile devices is a priority. This means everything from managing acquisition, configuration, and provisioning to security, finding lost devices, and remotely enabling and disabling features, to final disposal and disposition. Getting every agency’s mobile assets and applications seamlessly blended into the enterprise-wide IT effort is an ultimate goal.

Our Road to Win
Last May as college basketball teams across the nation started to plan and train for the upcoming season, the White House released its Digital Government Strategy. DGS #5.5 directed GSA to “set up a government-wide Mobile Device Management Platform.” Centralizing requirements gathering and solution evaluation reduces the burden on agencies while increasing their options’ quality and reducing cost government-wide.

GSA took the ball, did its homework, and teamed up with partners in DHS, DOJ, DISA, USDA, the White House Communications Agency, and other security, policy, and IT experts in industry and government.

Our next challenge was to make a game plan. The Managed Mobility Team recognized the managed mobility space is fast-moving and always changing, a bit like college basketball, so we needed a winning strategy. We initially developed a set of sought and desired Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) capabilities.

Secondly, we knew there were managed mobility solutions already available on existing, easily accessible contract vehicles. We wanted to leverage these resources rather than initially set out to build a new franchise from the ground up. The benefits of this game plan are faster, easier access to existing solutions without significant initial dollar investment as the emerging market continues to change.

Today, GSA and our partners are evaluating responses to our RFTC to identify solutions already available and opportunities to create new IDIQs and Schedule 70 BPAs if it makes sense. We will create a central repository so stakeholders can quickly find and scan solutions with links to contract vehicles and directions to acquire each one. In addition, we will track and share best practices, and implement strategies and mechanisms for the Managed Mobility Program to grow, evolve, improve, and respond to changes in mobile technology, policy, and requirements.

Beating the Time Clock
GSA takes our Digital Strategy Directive #5.5 seriously. Working with our government and industry partners, we will identify the GSA managed mobility toolset and make our central repository available to agencies ahead of the DGS deadline of May 23, 2013. When we launch our repository, government agencies will be able to access managed mobility solutions seamlessly in an easy-to-use, secure, integrated solution. At that point, we will prepare for the next game in the tournament, responding to the evolving MDM commercial market and the needs of our federal customers.

So, you’ve made it to the end, thanks for sticking around to the final buzzer. Now, you have a clear understanding of GSA’s Managed Mobility Program strategy and updates, what progress we’ve made, and what you can look forward to.

Please share comments or additional ideas in the comments section below or follow us on Twitter @GSA_ITS to join the conversation.

February 13, 2013January 11, 2024

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.

November 28, 2012January 11, 2024

Five guiding principles for FY13

Recently, I participated in a discussion with other federal government leaders to explore new and exciting IT solutions during GSA’s Network Services 2020 (NS2020) roundtable. It was the agency’s second roundtable, this time with CIOs, CAOs, and deputies throughout the federal government. Our goal was simple: Create a list of priorities for a future network services portfolio. The discussion gave us guiding principles for the NS2020 Strategy. Some apply beyond IT, to any government acquisition.

GSA shares initial lessons learned

We shared findings from GSA’s top-down review of previous and current telecommunications contracts, including FTS2001 and Networx. We reached out to over 100 stakeholders, performed market trend and data analysis, and held one-on-one meetings.

Our past outreach shows that GSA needs to match portfolio structure to agency buying patterns, as well as to industry market segments. Agencies value the more than $700M in savings achieved by Networx in FY12. We must continue to achieve greater savings through strategic sourcing to keep us in line with the September 20 GAO report that concludes government should do more strategic sourcing.

Here are the top 5 ideas:

1. Deeper government partnerships. Agencies want a spectrum of offerings ranging from complete solutions and managed services to commodity building blocks, with which to build their own solutions. They see value in GSA providing a portfolio of services based upon affinity clusters of services. Contract options brought to the table by other agencies also may be part of the mix.

2. Government and industry success. The more government makes our buys look like big corporate buys, the better we can tie into the market and existing industry capability. This means agency commitment, aggregated common requirements, and price visibility. There are benefits to aligning our portfolio with how industry works, and we need industry to weigh in and work with GSA to achieve this compatibility. Aligning offerings with industry practice and good industry partner communications will reduce transaction costs and benefit all. We discussed how to make incentives, instead of penalties, tied to contractor success, which could improve service to users and build upon the win-win.

3. Expand scope and delivery methods. We discussed the need and value of acquisition and operational efficiency. In developing this portfolio, GSA and agencies are looking broadly at how we aggregate requirements. A framework to weave related services and elements in an efficient way might include Software as a Service (SaaS), mobile applications, and other options. Some agencies are looking for turn-key solutions that offer hands-off management. Agencies are also looking for aggregated service and lower infrastructure costs through identifying common needs.

4. Continue commitment to innovation. We must continue to offer options to support continuous and convenient access to industry partner innovations. Looking at how we refresh technology and pricing could give us steady improvements with fewer heavy lifts. Many times, we can add innovation without developing new acquisitions.

5. Increase transition support and more. GSA can provide tailored customer support throughout the acquisition life cycle, including assistance with acquisition, fair opportunity, and transition processes. The systems and processes we have in place for consolidated and centralized billing have provided operational efficiencies. Enhancing these systems will further drive down government and industry operating costs.

Our current program provides more than $1.8B of networking services to federal agencies. We continue to enhance our existing portfolio as we plan for the future. We came away from the Roundtable with a plan of action. An NS2020 Interagency Advisory Panel will guide the strategy work for NS2020 and bring the strategy to the Federal CIO Council. Our joint commitment will turn shared priorities into real-world improvements.

Please share comments or additional priorities in the comments section below or follow us on twitter @GSA_ITS to join the conversation.

August 21, 2012January 11, 2024

Thinking Bigger

NOTE: Mary Davie is serving as the Acting Commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) for 60 days effective July 30, 2012. Her Deputy, Kevin Youel Page, has assumed the role of Acting Assistant Commissioner of the Integrated Technology Service (ITS) during this period.

This is my first blog post, so I will start with a brief introduction. I am Kevin Youel Page and it is a great honor to serve as the Acting Assistant Commissioner in Mary’s absence. Like all of us here at ITS, I believe in a great government through technology.

Prior to joining ITS, I spent time as a GSA customer as well as in industry with large and small companies. In my new role, I remain steadfastly committed to saving agencies time and money, while serving as a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. If we keep the ideals of speed to savings and innovation in service of customer missions as our north star, we will be achieving our mission.

Federal IT has reached an exciting juncture as we search for new ways to take agencies to the cloud. OMB’s IT 25 Point Reform Plan and Cloud First Policy represented a turning point as agencies began to realize that the cloud could save them significant time and money. GSA has been working with agencies to realize those savings by

streamlining the acquisition process through new vehicles like the IaaS BPA and our longstanding GWACs,
establishing standardized cloud security through FedRAMP, and
sharing our own best practices through providing sample Statements-of-Objectives and Statements-of-Work.

Despite all of the great work that we’ve done to date, there is still more that we can do. We must continue to challenge ourselves to be innovative and to explore new acquisition models. As our acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini recently said, “Just when you think you’ve thought big, think bigger.”

We took Dan’s words to heart and submitted a Request for Information (RFI) to gather industry feedback on the concept of a cloud broker. A cloud broker is an entity that manages the use, performance, and delivery of cloud services, while negotiating relationships between cloud providers and consumers. The RFI positions us to collaborate with industry leaders in creating a cloud strategy that could enable agencies to increase asset utilization and lower IT infrastructure costs.

Following the RFI release, we hosted a Cloud Brokerage Industry Day to answer questions and listen to what people had to say. Thought leaders in federal cloud computing like Keith Trippie, the Executive Director of Enterprise System Development Office in the Department of Homeland Security, and Katie Lewin, GSA’s Cloud Computing Program Director at the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technology, led a moderated Q&A discussion with over 160 participants. The RFI, presentations, and Q&A responses can be found on our Cloud webpage. Due to the enormous interest displayed and volume of feedback received, we have extended the deadline to respond to the RFI to September 7.

This was an exciting event because cloud migration represents a major change in the way that government does business, which means that our acquisition model must continue to evolve to respond to the shift. It will not be simple or easy, but GSA remains committed to paving the way to help agencies find innovative and cost-effective acquisition solutions, and I ask industry to join us in accepting this challenge. We are excited to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Please help us continue this conversation by joining my colleague Mark Day, Director of Strategic Programs at ITS, and a major contributor to the Cloud Brokerage model, for a Twitter Chat on August 28, 2012, from 2:30 – 3:30 pm EDT by following us @GSA_ITS.

June 18, 2012January 11, 2024

Defining the Future of Government IT

Last week, GSA had the pleasure of hosting a roundtable in Washington, DC that brought together federal CIOs, CTOs, and thought leaders in technology from the public and private sectors. Together, they discussed the future of government IT, and how agencies should respond to shrinking budgets and increased expectations for workplace efficiency.

Owing to the growing disparity between shrinking budgets and the need for emerging technologies, agency CIOs are under increasing pressure to do more with less. This presents a significant challenge and a unique opportunity for GSA to bring agencies together to identify major IT challenges, share industry best practices, and develop innovative acquisition solutions to move government IT forward.

Mission-enhancing technologies

Participants at the roundtable identified the need for mission-enhancing technologies such as mobility, cloud, video, and agency-specific mobile applications to help agencies achieve improved workforce productivity. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has led the charge in defining a strategy for mobility and cloud through the 25-point IT reform plan, “cloud-first” policy, and Digital Government Strategy; however, strategies for both video and apps are still in their infancy.

These initiatives, combined with the current budget environment, have created a climate favorable to adopting mission-enhancing technologies. Implementation has encountered challenges, however, because resources are locked in legacy systems, and agencies frequently duplicate efforts to meet similar requirements. In fact, several CIOs at the roundtable reported a belief that infrastructure requirements are more common than dissimilar across agencies. Participants expressed interest in moving more basic requirements such as backbone networks to a service-based model.

In order to move government forward, agencies must find ways to shift their resources from legacy systems to emerging technologies, and deal with security and the consumerization of IT, while eliminating duplication by transitioning to government-wide shared services. The move to shared services will reduce costs by eliminating redundancy and leveraging the buying power of the federal government.

The industry participants are using IT as a strategic business asset to build competitive advantage through human resources, reduction in space/facilities, improving business processes, and enabling information sharing and mobility.

How GSA is stepping up to the plate

Roundtable participants frequently cited GSA as a key partner in helping to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency through programs like the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which was launched last week. FedRAMP provides agencies with a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring by utilizing a “do once, use many” approach that simplifies the security approval process for cloud providers, thereby saving agencies precious time and money.

We have also helped agencies meet government-wide requirements through our Networx contract that has resulted in a savings of about $7.7 billion since 1999 as compared to commercial telecommunications prices.

Agencies are asking GSA to step up to the plate by leading the shift to mission-enhancing technologies. FedRAMP and Networx are two examples, but there is still work to be done. Government must continue working with agencies and industry to define requirements and develop IT acquisition solutions that enable agencies to get more for their mission. Meetings like last week’s roundtable help position GSA as a leader in driving that process.

Do you have an idea of how government can help eliminate duplication and leverage requirements? Post in the comments section below or follow us on Twitter @GSA_ITS to join the conversation.

May 1, 2012January 11, 2024

IT and Change Management in the Federal Workplace

Now that I’ve passed the one-year mark in writing this blog, I can look back and see what a tremendous opportunity this has been. I’ve had the chance to comment on how IT can help make government more efficient and sustainable, address the potential cost savings of IT procurement, and explain how government can achieve these savings by adopting new IT delivery models such as cloud computing and shared services.

One area that’s often overlooked during this time of change and technological innovation is the impact new technology has on federal workers. To achieve the positive effects I’ve been discussing, government leaders need to keep our entire workforce engaged with new technology. At GSA, we’ve made great progress modernizing our technology and preparing our employees to use it.

The benefits of workplace innovation

We are beginning another technology sea change with the transition to mobile government. Mobile government will be more mission-capable and responsive to the needs of the taxpayers. That’s because mobility connects employees with each other and releases them from traditional, static office space, enabling work from anywhere, at any time. Embracing mobile technology allows government to eliminate redundant systems, consolidate office space, be more sustainable, and increase the productivity of our workforce.

However, our progress should be measured by business results resulting from workers leveraging technology, not by the number of changes in and of themselves. For example, providing mobile access to employees through secure VPN and laptops is not enough. The government workforce is diverse and multi-generational, and some will have more familiarity with the technology than others. That means we need to provide training and change management that’s appropriate for employees of all backgrounds.

GSA is balancing change and engagement

GSA understands the benefits of training and enabling our employees to do more with technology. Our CIO team, led by Casey Coleman, has conducted change management programs to educate and engage employees for several new enterprise systems. For example, change management played a huge role in successfully migrating more than 17,000 GSA users from our in-house Lotus Notes e-mail system to cloud-based Google e-mail, which helped us save 50% on the cost of e-mail and decommission 45 servers.

Most recently, GSA has begun using Salesforce Chatter as an enterprise-wide internal collaboration tool. In just the past few months, Chatter has become a primary communications channel for thousands of GSA employees, enhancing the way we communicate as an agency through increased collaboration and sharing of information. We’re measuring our adoption rates for Chatter through number of posts, frequency of specific hashtags, and number of groups created. We’re finding that people across the agency can tap into expertise and knowledge in a matter of minutes in some cases and that helps us better serve our public sector partners.

GSA prepared for both Google e-mail and the Chatter rollout with mandatory online training, on-site help desks, “reverse mentoring” for our executives, and self-help videos. We also made it as simple as possible to get into these programs by using single sign-on so employees can use their existing usernames and passwords.

I invite you to share your own experiences and best practices by leaving a comment, or sending me a tweet @Marydavie.

I will also be at the annual GSA Training Conference and Expo in San Antonio from May 14-17. The EXPO is a unique opportunity to attend training and talk to GSA experts and our vendor partners about technologies like mobility, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. For more information, please visit the Expo webpage.

February 21, 2012January 11, 2024

Laying the Foundation for Integrations

Non-IT professional services continue to represent a major share of government contract spending. While GSA’s Schedules program offers technology and other professional services on an a la carte basis, agencies have asked us to provide a total professional services solution, which often requires acquisition of multiple services across separate functional areas. To answer this request, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service is preparing a business case for approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a new contract vehicle that we are calling Integrations.

Our goal

Integrations will be a strategic program enabling acquisition of complex integrated professional services along with supporting technology. Our governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs) have successfully enabled integrated solutions for technology acquisition. Like the GWACs, we want Integrations to fit closely with customer agency needs so that agencies do not have to create new vehicles.

For example, a key agency need is flexibility. About half of all government spending on complex integrated professional services in FY 2010 took place under cost-type contracts. That is why we are planning to include all task order types in Integrations, including cost reimbursement.

What to expect

GSA is committed to making the contract development process as transparent as possible, and ensure maximum participation by agencies and industry throughout this process. In the next quarter, we’re planning to finalize and post Part I of the Integrations OMB business case to the MAX Information System for agency review and comment. We will also be releasing a project schedule to allow industry to successfully prepare to respond to anticipated requirements.

Our development team is currently establishing a customer working group to include agency representatives from across government. We’ll take their input and validate agency needs over the course of three to four months, after which we will update our draft documents and share them with industry for feedback. In the meantime, industry partners are invited to visit the Integrations industry community on our collaboration platform, Interact, to learn more about the program and communicate directly with the Integrations team.

Let’s chat

I’m serving as one of the spokespeople for the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS)-wide Integrations team during this phase of contract development, and would like to hear how you want to be involved and how you’d like to hear from us. Please leave a comment with your thoughts on this new effort or join me for a Tweet Chat Wednesday, February 29^th. I’ll be on Twitter from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m., answering questions from customers and industry on a range of topics, including Integrations. To participate, follow us on Twitter at @GSA_ITS and use hashtag #ITSChat.

December 23, 2011January 11, 2024

GSA Puts Sharing First

Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel described his path forward for federal IT in a policy speech in Silicon Valley this October and again in the draft Federal IT Shared Services Strategy released just this month. He articulated a “Shared First” paradigm that will lead agencies to root out waste and duplication by sharing IT services, infrastructure, procurement vehicles, and best practices.

As the go-to partner for acquisition, GSA can help agencies go “Shared First”. We are ready to leverage our deep experience in working with customers across government to address their most challenging IT acquisition problems.

Shared IT services

The draft Shared Services Strategy requires agencies to move two “commodity IT services”—back-office IT services common to every agency—to a shared environment by December 31, 2012.

We have provided shared IT services to dozens of agencies over the years. For example, over 90 federal agencies use our USAccess identity management service to issue and manage their employee ID cards.

We are excited to help customers think about how to further consolidate their IT systems.

Shared infrastructure

Before the Federal Data Center Consolidation initiative, the federal government warehoused its data in over 3,000 data centers, tying up outsized amounts of capital and real estate and resulting in higher emissions.

According to VanRoekel, the federal government will close 1080 data centers by the end of 2015, with an estimated cost savings of $3 to $5 billion. GSA is working with agencies to achieve these savings by migrating to shared infrastructures through our data center services and cloud solutions.

Using a shared infrastructure also enhances service, since agencies can rapidly scale their capabilities up and down to match their mission needs, and recover more quickly after an emergency.

Shared procurement

Agencies also use GSA vehicles to minimize their contracting overhead. The State Department has done this by consolidating more than 100 existing task orders down to four through our Alliant and Alliant Small Business Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) for a secure network infrastructure.

When agencies buy alone, they also miss out on the volume discounts available when the government pools its buying power. Customers can get these kinds of discounts from the SmartBUY software program. GSA is also defining new ways for federal, state, local, and tribal government organizations to aggregate their demand by buying IT products as a commodity.

Shared best practices

GSA helps agencies use current best practices in contracting by posting sample statements of work (SOWs) for many of our contracts, such as Alliant and Connections II.

To support common standards, we aligned two GWACs (Alliant and Alliant Small Business) with the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) and Department of Defense Enterprise Architecture (DoDEA). This means agencies can more easily use past SOWs and report their IT investments to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It also means that the scope of both GWACs grows and changes as vendors’ technology capabilities grow and change, without requiring a technical refresh.

Give us your feedback

I encourage everyone involved in government IT acquisition to review the federal Shared Services Strategy (PDF) and provide comments. For background, you can watch VanRoekel’s speech or read a transcript. I’d like to know how you plan to use a “Shared First” approach for your agency – please leave a comment or find me on Twitter!