“GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service created a foundation over the last few years that focused on improving the customer and employee experiences.
Now FAS is ready to build on that foundation with four new initiatives that will expand the use of technology, further the buying and selling experiences in GSA’s $75 billion marketplace and bring more and better data to those who need it to make decisions…”
‘We’re going to be adding four additional cornerstones. Under that umbrella are a products marketplace, which is going to include both GSA Advantage as well as the commercial marketplace initiative; a services marketplace, which starts to address those questions around, what is our service contract strategy? What are the multiple award contracts (MACs)? What are the governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs)? What are the schedules? Where are the gaps? How do we deliver most value, reduce burden on the vendor community? We’re going to start to think really deeply about like the next iteration of catalog management. Similarly, we’re going to be focusing on data and other automation opportunities to reduce friction,’ FAS Commissioner Sonny Hashmi said during the recent Coalition for Government Procurement Conference, which was on Ask the CIO. ‘We are working on a set of systems processes and experiences that have been built over the last 30 years. In fact, today, there are systems running that are 40 years old. It’s not just about putting a new lipstick on the same back end, it’s not about just adding a little automation to connect the dots, we have to fundamentally rethink some of these things. And that fundamental rethink requires time and effort’…”
“Hashmi said the focus on the customer is driving its request for information about possibly setting up a new cloud services blanket purchase agreement as well as the new services multiple award contract to replace OASIS.
He said the OASIS replacement remains a work in progress in all regards.
‘If agencies and customers and vendors are comfortable competing in that environment, we want to make sure that that environment stays healthy and viable. But there’s other requirements that are coming our way that we also need to address,’ Hashmi said. ‘When you think of highly innovative companies that have deep expertise around specialized areas, like healthcare or advisory services, we want to be able to make sure that the contract has flexibility to be able to address those, that doesn’t mean that every competition, every task order is going to go through all of this competitive environment. That’s why we’re looking at a pooling structure so that you can actually identify the right pool for you based on the time of need.’…” Read the full article here.
Source: GSA’s next set of acquisition modernization initiatives to focus on services, automation, data – By Jason Miller, July 1, 2021. Federal News Network.
