Tag: Government Acquisition

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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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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?

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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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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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GSA’s Innovation Recipe

I’ve heard the message from the people loud and clear: They want government to be more effective and to do more with fewer resources.

As Assistant Commissioner of GSA’s Integrated Technology Services — a service provider for the federal government — I am always looking for ways to do more with less.

As I’ve discussed in previous blog posts, innovation is what makes it possible to meet increasing demands with the same — or fewer — resources.

Following the Innovation Recipe

Every business guru has a recipe. From my own experience in industry and government, here’s my old family recipe — what I know works:

  • 1 part Trust
  • 1 part Resources
  • 2 parts Risk

But the recipe’s for creating innovation from scratch. It’s not a box mix.

Supervisors and employees need to trust each other. It’s not a given part of employment; it’s a process. At GSA, we get to know our coworkers as well as our government customers. Creating a culture of innovation is a top-down as well as bottom-up process.  Not only must we empower our employees to seek innovation, we must provide the leadership and courage necessary to enable these environments to exist.

Supervisors must identify and make it possible for trusted employees to innovate by providing the appropriate resources — time, space, money, and technology.

Because our mix of resources and risk may vary, the result may be unpredictable. But sometimes that’s what we need. Administrator Johnson has said, “The trick is to fail fast and learn from it.” I’d add that we should also look for unintended innovation.

Innovation is often a product of failure, rather than success.  The technology behind GSAdvantage! came out of  an earlier initiative that was never implemented.

We took a risk and the project failed — but the result was an innovative solution to a different challenge — the question we didn’t even know needed answering.

Risk: Creating a Culture of Innovation

To nurture an innovative culture is to create a culture of risk-taking.  My recipe requires two parts risk because I recognize the need to balance the desire to encourage risk-taking with the need to protect against it.

GSA has embarked on a number of innovative initiatives under the direction of Administrator Johnson, who says, “We need the courage and leadership to face down risk.”

Risk and Reward: Cloud Computing

GSA has awarded contracts for providing Infrastructure-as-a-Services (IaaS) cloud computing services. We’ve embarked on new business and service-delivery models. We are also asking our customers to change how they approach the acquisition of IT hardware. Even yet, contract awardees must complete the appropriate security certifications to be able to provide IaaS offerings. It has been a process fraught with challenges and risks.

However, we are confident that this and future offerings will drive technological innovation, efficiency, and cost savings across government.

For example, since moving its own portal, USA.gov, to a cloud-based host, GSA has been able to reduce site upgrade time from nine months to one day; decrease monthly downtime from two hours to 99.9% availability, and realize a savings of $1.7 million in hosting costs.

That’s not just innovation. That’s great government through technology.

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GSA as Acquisition Enabler: Alliant Hits $1 Billion

Parents like nothing better than to see their children grow up and succeed.

For my colleagues and me, last week—when the contract surpassed $1 billion in the value of task orders issued since its launch—was like Alliant’s high school graduation.

Despite some challenges, Alliant reached the $1 billion mark more quickly than its recent predecessors ANSWER and Millennia. It has demonstrated its value to our industry partners and customers, and GSA remains firmly committed to supporting it.

A few points about Alliant’s success:

  • All Department of Defense (DoD) branches and many civilian agencies, including Homeland Security and the State Department, use Alliant;
  • Twenty-four of 59 prime contractors have won awards on 45 task orders;
  • GSA has received an average of four bids per task order and not a single protest—demonstrating fair, open competition;
  • Both the largest and most innovative IT projects across government, such as Smart Buildings, use Alliant.

From Alliant’s success, we can also draw conclusions about the state of the acquisition world.

There has been a lot of discussion on the blogosphere about GSA and its imagined or real intentions toward other agency GWACs.  In light of Alliant’s success, my only comment is to echo Administrator Martha Johnson’s question:  “How do you … be a real agent for procurement, not the procurement enforcer?”

I want agencies to use Alliant, as well as our small business GWACs, because these contracts meet their needs, not because the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has mandated their use.

Recently, industry groups have expressed concern about duplicative indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contracts.  I know firsthand from my industry experience that vendors feel compelled to bid for all or as many contracts as possible. This bidding ends up costing tens of thousands of dollars each, or more. These costs are not just the “cost of doing business”; they are passed on to the government and eventually to the taxpayer. I don’t see how that benefits anyone in the long run.

Agency acquisition officers face two critical issues: the time cost of money and the availability of an already stretched acquisitions workforce.  Agencies looking to avoid paying a GSA or other GWAC fee by creating their own contracts may not save money or time in the long run.

As Administrator Johnson has noted, our challenge is “not about mandates or market changes”; it’s about what GSA can do to meet our customers’ needs. Results on Alliant and our small business GWACs show us that we are on the right track; now we must execute on that vision.

So let me know in your comments below: what do you need? What are your requirements? What—and how—can we serve you better? How can we make your job easier?