Tag: Government-wide

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Cloud and Data Center Consolidation – Bringing together the perfect couple

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Twelve Facts of HSPD-12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Email as a Service: A Clear Vision into a Cloudy Future

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.

GSA’s mission is to help save the government time and money, and as acting assistant commissioner of ITS, I take that to heart.  There’s been a lot of talk recently about what GSA is or isn’t doing to help government IT move to the cloud so I thought I’d weigh in.  Helping government move to the cloud is a priority for GSA. Cloud has the ability to transform the way agencies do their work by making them more agile, effective, and efficient. At the end of 2010, OMB tapped GSA to help lead the way in introducing cloud systems to the federal government. The key was understanding how government could take advantage of the cloud’s transformative power.

Along the way, there have been growing pains for both government and industry; however, the transition to cloud is already saving agencies time and money because of GSA’s ongoing efforts to be innovative, collaborative and creative.

Creating comprehensive solutions

We strive to deliver best value and have been working closely with government and industry to create a comprehensive cloud solutions portfolio for use by government agencies looking to save millions of taxpayer dollars typically spent on IT programs. Since 2009, our solutions enabling the acquisition of cloud include governmentwide acquisition vehicles (GWACs), Networx and Schedule 70. Over the past two years, agencies have purchased approximately $175 million in cloud services using our Alliant contract.

Last month GSA announced the availability of our cloud email solution, the Email as a Service (EaaS) BPA, which will allow agencies to order pre-approved cloud- based tools for email, office automation, and electronic records management, as well as the migration and integration services necessary for a swift transition leading to rapid savings. The BPA offers recurring purchasing options at a reduced cost that is also convenient and efficient.

Cloud based email services support the Obama Administration’s mandates and initiatives to bring cloud services into the federal government and reduce the number of federal data centers, which save taxpayer dollars. We estimate that agencies will save 50 percent, about $1 million, annually for every 7,500 users migrated. Last year GSA was the first federal agency to make the move to the cloud using our Alliant GWAC to migrate 17,000 email accounts, saving $2 million to date, with an estimated savings of $15 million over five years.

What makes EaaS even more exciting is that it will leverage GSA’s innovative security program, Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which uses a “do once, use many times” approach to save agencies time and money by providing a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring. This process allows agencies to avoid the need to conduct its own security assessment, which can cost more than $100,000 and take up to nine months. This could potentially result in $10 million in savings across the government.

Recognizing Innovation

With all the great things GSA is doing, there is still more work to do. I have echoed the challenge of our administrator: when you think you’ve thought big, think bigger. Our cloud team responded by releasing a Cloud Brokerage RFI in August.  This RFI will allow us to pool government and industry’s collective knowledge around cloud acquisition to formulate future innovative and cost-effective solutions.

Cloud Brokerage and our EaaS BPA are already receiving accolades. In fact, the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) gave GSA’s collaborative approach to solving the cloud challenge its innovative thinking in government recognition three weeks in a row.

Cloud Migration represents a major shift in the way government conducts business, which means that our acquisition models must continue to evolve. There is a long road ahead, and GSA will be there to support our customers. Our cloud portfolio and efforts to facilitate government-wide cloud migration continues to show that GSA focuses on its core efforts of promoting efficiency, delivering better value, and saving taxpayer dollars.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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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?