procurement

Business Process Management Technology Gives Managers Control

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Life in a government agency can toggle between extremes. At one end you find highly regular and predictable patterns such as the day-to-day processing of claims, forms, receipts, licenses, and benefits. At the other end are sudden, ad hoc situations, often brought on by an external event. And sometimes, people simply realize there is a better way to do things that makes them faster, more efficient, or less expensive.

So regardless, every organization should be continually striving to improve its business processes. Today, easy-to-use technologies make changing and automating such processes a snap. Staff involved in performing the mission can model an activity and design a workflow to support it. And, key to federal organizations, those resulting workflows take into account the laws and regulations embedded in legacy systems from which the new application draws data. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 27, 2012 at 9:00 AM

CIO Council Report Reflects Mobile Technology Challenges

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In a follow up report to the Digital Government Strategy, the Federal CIO Council conducted a survey and interviewed 21 agencies on their use of mobile technologies. The “Report on Barriers, Gaps, and Opportunities for Government Use of Mobile Technology” addresses Milestone Action 10.2 of the Digital Government Strategy which aims to “evaluate opportunities to accelerate the secure adoption of mobile technologies into the Federal environment at reduced cost.”

The results offer insight into three key considerations for the use of mobile technologies: opportunities and barriers; gaps; and risks, threats, and vulnerabilities. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 19, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Five Guiding Principles For Future Network Services Procurement

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A top procurement official at the General Services Administration has posted a set of priorities on a GSA website that will guide the agency’s technology services arm as it plans out future procurement strategies.

Kevin Youel, acting assistant commissioner of GSA’s Integrated Technology Service (ITS), said that the principles emerged during a recent discussion with federal chief information and acquisition officers, along with agency deputies throughout the federal government.

The discussion, the agency’s second stakeholder roundtable, focused primarily on setting priorities for GSA’s next generation of network services portfolio and related procurement offerings.

“The discussion gave us guiding principles for the Network Services 2020 (NS2020) Strategy,” said Youel in a blog posted this week. But some of the principles “apply beyond IT, to any government acquisition,” he said.

Youel said GSA shared findings from GSA’s top-down review of previous and current telecommunications contracts, including FTS2001 and Networx, based on meetings with more than 100 stakeholders, and after reviewing market trends and other data analysis.

“Our past outreach shows that GSA needs to match portfolio structure to agency buying patterns,” he said. It also needs to be aligned as well as to industry market segments, he said.

While agencies “value the more than $700 million in savings achieved by Networx in FY12,” he said, GSA “must continue to achieve greater savings through strategic sourcing to keep us in line with the September 20 GAO report that concludes government should do more strategic sourcing.”

Youel summarized the top five principles that emerged from the discussions, which according to his blog post, called for:

1. Deeper government partnerships. Agencies want a spectrum of offerings ranging from complete solutions and managed services to commodity building blocks, with which to build their own solutions. They see value in GSA providing a portfolio of services based upon affinity clusters of services. Contract options brought to the table by other agencies also may be part of the mix.

2. Government and industry success. The more government makes our buys look like big corporate buys, the better we can tie into the market and existing industry capability. This means agency commitment, aggregated common requirements, and price visibility. There are benefits to aligning our portfolio with how industry works, and we need industry to weigh in and work with GSA to achieve this compatibility. Aligning offerings with industry practice and good industry partner communications will reduce transaction costs and benefit all. We discussed how to make incentives, instead of penalties, tied to contractor success, which could improve service to users and build upon the win-win.

3. Expand scope and delivery methods. We discussed the need and value of acquisition and operational efficiency. In developing this portfolio, GSA and agencies are looking broadly at how we aggregate requirements. A framework to weave related services and elements in an efficient way might include Software as a Service (SaaS), mobile applications, and other options. Some agencies are looking for turn-key solutions that offer hands-off management. Agencies are also looking for aggregated service and lower infrastructure costs through identifying common needs.

4. Continue commitment to innovation. We must continue to offer options to support continuous and convenient access to industry partner innovations. Looking at how we refresh technology and pricing could give us steady improvements with fewer heavy lifts. Many times, we can add innovation without developing new acquisitions.

5. Increase transition support and more. GSA can provide tailored customer support throughout the acquisition life cycle, including assistance with acquisition, fair opportunity, and transition processes. The systems and processes we have in place for consolidated and centralized billing have provided operational efficiencies. Enhancing these systems will further drive down government and industry operating costs.

“Our current program provides more than $1.8 billion of networking services to federal agencies,” he concluded. “We continue to enhance our existing portfolio as we plan for the future. An NS2020 Interagency Advisory Panel will guide the strategy work for NS2020 and bring the strategy to the Federal CIO Council, he said.

Keep reading →

 /  Published November 30, 2012 at 2:00 PM

The Next Big Issue Federal IT Officials Will Need To Tackle

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Procurement is emerging as one of the most significant issues facing federal information technology leaders as the Obama administration begins its second term, a top ranking government IT official said this week.

More and more federal agencies are making the leap to cloud computing, adopting mobile technologies and developing APIs to share information. But agency IT leaders remain hampered from moving faster by contracting constraints that make it hard to make cross-agency buys, said Richard Spires, chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security and vice chairman of the Federal CIO Council. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 16, 2012 at 8:00 AM

Issa Proposes Sweeping IT Management And Acquisition Reforms

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Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif) is proposing legislation that would provide sweeping reforms in the way technology is managed and acquired at federal agencies in an effort to eliminate duplication and waste.

The provisions would grant significantly more power to federal chief information officers to control the technology that agencies acquire. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 20, 2012 at 12:31 PM

DOD’s Dilemma: When Software Becomes A Weapon Of Choice

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Choosing the best software for soldiers on the battlefield is becoming as important as the weapons they use. But it’s also becoming an increasingly complicated supply challenge for military commanders and acquisition officials, according to defense experts.

There’s little question that real-time information – and the ability to analyze and act on that information quickly – is becoming the ultimate weapon for warfighters. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 13, 2012 at 11:01 AM

Sequester Would Force 108K Layoffs In Federal Workforce, Not In Defense Industry: CSBA

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Sequestration would force the Defense Department and other federal agencies to lay off workers long before the defense industry had to, said a report released today by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Though big defense contractors, led by Lockheed Martin, have warned that the threat of sequestration might require them to send layoff notices to tens of thousands of employees just before the November elections, CSBA’s Todd Harrison said the effects of sequestration on defense companies would be delayed for months or years. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 24, 2012 at 12:30 PM

Where Vendor’s Fit In The Government’s Cloud Mandate

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Cloud computing isn’t just about technology – it is about transformation, leadership and change. When it comes to government IT, cloud is typically 80% of the discussion, but only 20% of the budget.

With the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) 18-month “Cloud First” deadline passing in June and the federal government hoping to accredit three cloud service providers under FedRAMP by the end of 2012, cloud computing is at the forefront of government IT. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 7, 2012 at 1:30 PM

‘Myth-Busting 2’ Seeks To Further Improve Acquisition Process

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The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) released a second “Myth-Busting” memo Monday addressing misconceptions about acquisition processes.

In the memo, Acting Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy Lesley A. Field states that federal agencies have taken significant additional steps to improve communications between federal agencies and the vendor community since the first “Myth-Busting” memo was released last year. OFPP has issued the second memorandum to continue that process. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 7, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Five Challenges For Federal Procurement — And The Agencies That Meet Them

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COMMENTARY – Transparency, accountability and auditability are central to the federal push for open government. Nowhere is the need for improvement and reform greater than in the federal procurement process.

Procurement professionals, however, are hamstrung from being able to answer even the most basic Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) audit questions, in terms of the procurement and delivery of services. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 17, 2012 at 10:54 AM
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