Tag: Government Acquisition

Posted on

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 29th.  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.

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Will IT Eat Your Agency?

Last week I attended the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2011 in Orlando. What a conference! It featured great speakers and great ideas for IT, particularly government IT.

I was especially intrigued by Andrea Di Maio and Jerry Mechling’s predictions for government IT spending, because they spoke to problems GSA is already helping to solve.

Constraints on Government IT Spend

Andrea predicts that by 2013, government financial sustainability will join cost containment as a top driver and constraint for government IT spend. What did Andrea mean by “financial sustainability”, and how does it differ from cost containment? The answer is rather bleak: It’s the survival of the services we’re used to the government providing.

Jerry said IT spend will remain a greater portion of overall budgets, even as budgets shrink overall. In the past, IT investment was a “nice to have.” Now, agencies must keep a laser-like focus on their technology budget to make sure it contributes to their core mission.

Who Decides IT Spend?

Andrea also predicts that by 2014, over half of IT spend will be decided outside the IT department in at least 30% of government organizations. This prediction took me aback. If the IT department isn’t deciding what they spend on IT, who is?

One answer is industry. IT investments will be driven by changes and initiatives in the IT industry, not by IT buyers.

The other answer is tightening budgets. Agencies are considering consolidation and transition to shared services models, which will require the IT department and CIO to take on new roles to make that happen. In the near future, CIOs may need to see themselves more as “Enterprise Program Managers” than as pure CIOs.

How GSA Can Help

We have programs in place to assist agencies facing these trends:

Innovative new acquisition models. Our new IT commodity buying solution is coming online this quarter. We’re leveraging the bulk buying power of the government to offer lower prices for leading IT commodities like laptops and warranty services. We’re issuing blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) off of IT Schedule 70 to leverage existing contracts, and we’ll also be creating a more comprehensive solution that’s not limited by today’s processes and systems. From what I heard at the symposium, we‘ll need that future acquisition model yesterday.

IT consolidation. We can help agencies consolidate both their IT systems and the way they manage their IT programs. Our cloud and data center services solutions enable agencies to fulfill OMB’s Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative and Cloud First policy. In terms of IT program management, the State Department is consolidating more than 100 existing task orders down to four task orders on our Alliant GWAC.

Innovative shared services. For shared services, agencies can look to TEMS, our telecommunications expense management offering, and USAccess, which provides end-to-end identity management services to 90 agencies and over 620,000 employees. Our Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS) can also manage part or all of the IT acquisition process.

Do you agree with these predictions? What do you think will happen to government IT spending in the next few years? What do you think agencies will need to do to adapt? And how can GSA help you?

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Big Opportunities for Small Businesses

At GSA, we promote small businesses because they are engines of innovation. They’ve got insights and expertise and I love working at an agency that helps them grow and compete in the federal marketplace.

So I’m thrilled that on July 29, 2011, 599 small businesses from across the country received awards on our 8(a) STARS II Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC). Now in its third generation, 8(a) STARS II is a streamlined program making it easier for government agencies to purchase IT services and meet small business contracting goals. At the same time, the new contract creates real opportunities for these companies to grow in communities across 38 states.

I have seen first-hand what small businesses can do to help government operate smarter and more efficiently. They helped transform GSA’s IT systems, enabling one third of our employees to telework.  They are providing the Federal Acquisition Service’s Chief Information Officer with critical program and application management support. They are even helping us find more environmentally sustainable solutions for our operating environment, something that will reap benefits for years to come.

But don’t just take my word for it. The Department of Defense is now encouraging its acquisition community to use GSA’s Alliant Small Business, 8(a) STARS, and VETS GWACs to access small businesses’ creativity and innovation. The Navy is using Alliant Small Business as part of its IT Services Strategic Sourcing Initiative, something that will ultimately save them money and resources so they can focus on other mission critical activities.

At GSA our commitment to small businesses — such as the 8(a) STARS II program — is a big deal, and we remain committed to working with them and our agency customers to build a stronger America. Let me know how we can continue to do this by leaving a comment or reaching me on Twitter.

Posted on

Achieving the IT Reform Plan: GSA’s Four Secrets of Success

Government agencies are six months into implementing the Federal CIO’s 25 Point IT Reform Plan, and according to agency CIO status blogs, we’re on schedule. That’s great news.

However, how we finish is more important than how we stay on schedule. With Federal CIO Vivek Kundra moving on, we need to work that much harder.

That’s why I want to share some secrets that will help us achieve the plan the Federal OCIO set in motion:

Secret #1 – GSA has the first-mover advantage (and wants to share!)
As Casey Coleman pointed out in her blog, GSA successfully addressed point 3 of the IT reform plan: We moved our email to the cloud using our own Alliant GWAC. We can share our scope of work and lessons learned with your agency.

Secret #2 – GSA has the solutions to meet your IT reform plan challenges
We’ve created the first OMB-sanctioned cloud computing-specific contract vehicles for Infrastructure as a Service and Email as a Service, fulfilling points 4 and 5.

We can also help you consolidate your commodity IT spending under agency CIOs (point #20), an area where government is behind the curve. We have stood up a new IT commodity buying program and are building our Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) Wireless program to provide streamlined acquisition support.

Secret #3 – Involve industry in any IT project
Industry involvement is critical for any IT project, as is communicating early, often, and throughout the process.

At GSA, we are involving industry and agencies to develop new solutions such as our cloud BPAs, our FSSI Wireless, and SmartBUY, as well as planning our Network Services program strategy.

In addition to face-to-face conversations, we are using tools like wikis, discussion boards, and idea-generation tools. We have found these tools to be great ways to augment traditional market research and requirements definition processes, reaching a broader audience as well as increasing transparency and participation.

Check out GSA’s use of a wiki to get input on RFIs, requirements, and acquisition strategy at the BetterBuy Wiki. We’d be glad to share lessons learned and “how-tos” with your agency.

Secret #4 – Pick the right partners
As the government’s primary workplace solutions provider and a proving ground for new IT solutions, GSA can provide the tips, tools, and technologies to enable you to see all of your IT projects through to successful conclusion.

Let me know how we can help your agency by leaving a comment or reaching me on Twitter.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Great Government and the Technology Dividend

Welcome to Year 2 of the Great Government through Technology blog. I’m Mary Davie, the new Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS). Many of you may already know me as the former Assistant Commissioner of Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS) and my work with the Better Buy Project and the Better Blog.

I’m excited to have the opportunity to talk with you here, and I look forward to opening a conversation on how GSA can deliver great government through its technology products and services.

I view my transition from AAS to ITS as a logical step. Both AAS and ITS share a similar perspective on how to use technology to facilitate the acquisition process and deliver integrated solutions. Both have a similar focus on innovation, sustainability, customer intimacy and operational excellence—we make acquisitions easier, faster, better, greener and more secure.

I am also a strong proponent of Web 2.0 and social media for engaging colleagues, customers and industry. For those who don’t know me, Twitter is one of my favorite ways for reaching out to colleagues and customers.

Reaping Technology Dividends
If there were ever a time to aspire to “great government through technology,” it’s now. Agencies face tightening budgets. Acquisition professionals are being asked to do more with less. Large IT acquisitions have come under greater scrutiny.

However, we have much to be hopeful about: new technology solutions such as Cloud Computing and Data Center Services will yield dividends for the government—cost-savings; reduced carbon emissions; and increased communication, collaboration, transparency and productivity.

Throughout my career, I’ve worked all along the IT acquisition lifecycle, with industry, our customer agencies, and my colleagues on all sides of GSA’s business. I see enormous possibilities to collaboratively align GSA’s product and service offerings to meet agencies’ needs for increased productivity, security, and sustainable and cost-effective mission-critical systems.

In 2010, ITS took big steps to reach out to agencies and industry in new ways.

In 2011, we’ll build on that momentum. We’re putting the service back into Integrated Technology Services. More on that in the future.

Let me know what you think. Leave a comment. Tweet me. Or come see me at the Coalition for Government Procurement Executive Breakfast on February 25th.

Posted on

New Endings, New Beginnings: Looking Ahead to 2011

It’s now been just over a year since I launched the Great Government through Technology blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. It’s the thoughtful discussions I’ve had with you—our valued customer agencies, industry partners, and government colleagues—that prompted me to write this blog in the first place.

As you may know, I will be retiring this month. For my last two years as Assistant Commissioner of GSA’s FAS Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS), I’ve had the good fortune to work with great people and oversee a number of exciting initiatives: the successful rollout of GSA’s Alliant and Alliant Small Business GWACs, the Future Commercial Satellite Communications Services Acquisition (FCSA) in partnership with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and the awarding of Infrastructure-as-a-Service contracts, GSA’s first cloud offering.

GSA has proved its commitment to greater agency and industry partnership, acquisition innovation, and operational excellence.

Looking Ahead to 2011

For my final post on the Great Government through Technology blog, I’d like to look ahead, rather than reflect on the past. Here’s what I see on the horizon for federal IT and GSA in 2011.

Sustainability, cybersecurity, and cloud computing offerings have reached or passed their tipping points. In addition, budget concerns, increased oversight, and a serious need for better IT project management will lead to smaller IT acquisitions and greater collaboration.

Sustainability. With the President’s Executive Order (EO) 13514: Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, government agencies must become more sustainable. GSA, among others, must help achieve “greener government.” At the same time, agencies will be driven by budget concerns to seek out technologies that offer greater operational efficiency and sustainability.

Cybersecurity. Innovative acquisition solutions are critical to securing our nation’s digital infrastructure. GSA must address agencies’ current requirements and anticipate their future needs. The next generation of cybersecurity offerings must entail fully integrated solutions made up of pre-authorized products and services.

Security needs and budget concerns will require increased cross-agency partnerships, such as the DoD and DHS Cybercommand Memo of Understanding (MOU) and will spur experimentation with industry-government partnerships to leverage government buying power and private sector best practices.

Cloud Computing. Cloud computing may prove to be the nexus of sustainability, cybersecurity, and IT organizations’ need to stretch their funding. In line with these concerns and the federal CIO’s “cloud first” policy, cloud will become the default option for IT operations. Hybrid clouds will proliferate. Pay-as-you-go, or subscription models, will become increasingly common. GSA’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering is only the first of great things to come.

Smaller IT Acquisitions. Agencies will seek out ways to make IT projects more manageable, cheaper, and less risky, to include breaking large-scale IT implementations into smaller projects issued under task orders to existing contract vehicles such as Alliant and Alliant Small Business.

Collaboration. Whether we’re talking about innovative partnership strategies such as FCSA, the DoD-DHS MOU, new Web 2.0 tools such as GSA’s Interact, or improved communication among acquisition and IT shops, increased collaboration will be key to improving IT project management.

The “Beat” Goes On

While GSA may face many challenges, 2011 will be an exciting year. Where there are challenges, there are also opportunities to innovate.

In the words of a former major league baseball commissioner, “Players turn over, owners turn over, and certain commissioners turn over. But baseball goes on.” Though I am moving on, I want to welcome Mary Davie, who will be taking my place as Assistant Commissioner of the GSA FAS Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS).

As former head of the GSA FAS Office of Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS), Mary’s IT acquisition experience, innate understanding of customers’ needs, and proven leadership ability make her uniquely suited for leading ITS and working with you to realize the vision of Great Government through Technology.