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Tag: Federal Acquisition Service

Reforming the Reformers

Over the next few years, GSA will institute approximately 25 reforms to improve the federal marketplace, with a goal of easing the buying and selling process for all involved. (Federal Times, July 24, 2019)

Alan Thomas, the commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, has named the following four initiatives as ‘cornerstones,’ bound to the success of the other ‘stones’ around them:

  1. Developing an enterprise-wide contract writing system — provides the contracting workforce “a single, core system that stores all of our data and has a set of common business processes”
  2. Managing catalog data — changing how industry systems and processes are represented to buying agencies
  3. Consolidating the Multiple Award Schedule program — occurring as we write, the current 24 multiple award schedules are merging into a single Schedule.
  4. Instituting a commercial platform initiative — an online buying platform, much like Amazon, which will allow government purchasers to order products without a contracting process. (ibid)

Many other reforms will go into effect over time. Additionally, GSA is working to make smaller improvements that make contractors and customer agencies more aware of available tools. These tools should simplify the contracting process. (ibid)

Have questions about the reforms and how they will affect the current procurement process? Give us a call.

Price Inconsistencies on Schedule 70? Nah…

GSA’s IG audit of GSA schedules in 2016 found large price discrepancies between identical items. For instance, the cost of one of Sharp’s 70-inch LED Smart TVs showed prices ranging from $1,597 to $3,000. The audit also turned up prices much lower on commercial products. In addition, from August 2014 to July 2015, most IT schedule purchases were for top-selling items priced higher than the lowest IT schedule price, completely defeating the purpose of the Schedules program. (Nextgov, May 21, 2019)

Recommendations to correct the disparities include:

  • Verify prices for identical IT schedule items by price analysis
  • Improve price protection for IT schedule reseller contracts by setting controls
  • Ensure contracting officers receive accurate and complete information around manufacturers’ commercial sales practices (ibid)

Per the review by the IG, the Federal Acquisition Service has taken “appropriate corrective actions” to address these price inconsistencies.

Questions about IT Schedule or other GSA Schedule pricing? Give us a call at 301-913-5000.

One and Done! – Highly Adaptive Cybersecurity Services (HACS) update to Schedule 70

The field of cybersecurity has grown substantially since the initial launching of the four HACS in 2016. This growth has led GSA to restructure the original HACS SINS 132-45 (A-D) into a single HACS SIN, 132-45, with subcategories of cybersecurity services.

Federal agencies use large complex network and data systems to maintain and manage many forms of data and information, including High Value Assets that hold sensitive information critical to national and economic security. As a result, the proposed restructure will include the following full set of HACS SIN services:

• High-Value Asset Assessments

• Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (RVA)

• Incident Response

• Penetration Testing

• Cyber Hunt

The four current HACS SINs will be deleted from the solicitation and added as subcategories under the new HACS SIN 132-45.

Please feel free to give us a call at 301-913-5000 if you’d like to discuss your cybersecurity solutions for GSA Schedule 70.