acquisition

GSA Laying Foundation For Integrated Services Contracting Vehicle

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Non-IT professional services continue to represent a major share of government contract spending. While the General Services Administration’s Schedules program offers technology and other professional services on an a la carte basis, agencies have asked us to provide a total professional services solution, which often requires acquisition of multiple services across separate functional areas.

To answer this request, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service is preparing a business case for approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a new contract vehicle that we are calling Integrations.
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This article was adapted from a blog post originally published on GSA’s website.
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 /  Published February 22, 2012 at 4:22 PM

DoD Takes Innovative Approach Researching Enterprise Information Web

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I recently led a team of nine that made a two hour presentation to the Department of Defense at the new Mark Center to provide perspective on the DoD Enterprise Information Web (EIW).

The EIW team is pioneering the adoption of semantic technology and approaches that can be the way forward for enterprise business intelligence and solution architectures in the DoD. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 14, 2012 at 3:57 PM

New Budget Reality Is Destabilizing Federal Contracting Equilibrium

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For a number of years, there has been a certain relationship between different segments of the federal information technology market. But those relationships are changing as agencies have had to come to grips with stark new budget constraints, which are expected to be reflected in the new federal budget being released by the White House today.

Those changes are already having an important implications for the companies competing for federal IT contracts as well as for the federal and military leaders responsible for acquiring and operating the IT technologies that support their civil and military agency mission requirements.
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This article was adapted from introductory remarks made Feb. 13 at the 25th Annual Federal Networks by conference chairman, Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting. For more news and insights on innovations at work in government, please sign up for the AOL Gov newsletter. For the quickest updates, follow us on Twitter @AOLgov.
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 /  Published February 13, 2012 at 11:01 AM

Government’s Mobile Moment

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Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel recently announced the development of a new Mobile Strategy at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I was there, and was glad to hear his perspective on the potential of mobile technology for government, especially since GSA has been working hard to realize that potential.

Putting mobile IT to the test Keep reading →

 /  Published February 10, 2012 at 5:03 PM

Feds @ Work: GSA’s Dave McClure and Kathy Conrad On Fostering Innovation

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When it comes to keeping abreast of government IT innovation, few individuals enjoy a better perspective than Dave McClure, associate administrator for GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. McClure spent 14 years with the Government Accountability Office leading IT reviews — and five more years with Gartner, heading government research, before joining the General Services Administration in 2009. In addition to supporting a number of major federal IT initiatives, McClure also makes time to meet with entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to keep his finger on the technology pulse.

AOL Government Editorial Director Wyatt Kash recently caught up with McClure, and his principal deputy, Kathy Conrad, to talk about the benefits of looking at start-ups for ideas that might eventually benefit federal agencies. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 9, 2012 at 9:01 AM

Feds @ Work: DHS Science Guy Dan Gerstein Looks For Fast Payoff

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Dan Gerstein doesn’t wear khaki any more, but his career in the Army still influences his approach to his current work: practical with a touch of inspiration.

As deputy undersecretary for Science and Technology at the Homeland Security Department, Dan Gerstein helps oversee a broad array of research and development activities. The common theme, ultimately, is effectiveness of the DHS mission of homeland protection both through its own people and through first responders at all levels of government. It does this by applying R&D to both knowledge-based and technology-based solutions.
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 /  Published January 27, 2012 at 8:08 AM

A ‘Shared First’ Approach For The New Year

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Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel described his path forward for federal IT in a policy speech in Silicon Valley this October and again in the draft Federal IT Shared Services Strategy released just this month. He articulated a “Shared First” paradigm that will lead agencies to root out waste and duplication by sharing IT services, infrastructure, procurement vehicles, and best practices.
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This article originally appeared on GSA’s Great Government Through Technology blog.
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 /  Published January 3, 2012 at 11:30 AM

Small Government Contractors Spending More, Bidding Less

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The U.S. government is the world’s largest single purchaser of goods and services. But not even the federal government has been immune from needing to cut costs dramatically, which in turn has had a sweeping impact on contractors–and small business contractors in particular.

A new survey of 740 active small businesses pursuing government work found that small businesses are having to spend more to bid on government contracts, are being rebuffed with greater frequency, but being rewarded for their persistence. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 27, 2011 at 12:15 PM

OFPP’s Dan Gordon Calmed Stormy Seas

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One of the more effective members of the Obama administration, Dan Gordon guided several important cost-cutting and procurement reform initiatives. Now he is about to step down. I think it is safe to say Gordon has been one of the most consequential OFPP administrators in recent years.

He didn’t join immediately after Obama’s inauguration, but rather in September of 2009. This was when tensions between government and industry were running high. Many IT contractors felt their staffs were being raided by agencies. The administration, joined by federal employee unions, seemed to be hell-bent on pulling back work from contractors and taking it wholesale in-house. The White House was looking for across-the-board cuts in spending on contractors.
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 /  Published December 5, 2011 at 9:06 AM

Get Used To The Word VMO

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You might be hearing it a lot. Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel is calling for departments and major agencies to create vendor management organizations, or single-office gateways for managing contractors.

He comes at this in the context of the 25-point IT reform plan. He’s vetting the idea through the President’s Management Advisory Board (PMAB.) Industry uses VMOs widely. Basically VMO is modern parlance for purchasing department. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 2, 2011 at 12:33 PM
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