The General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service has completed its three-year vision plan as part of a successful fiscal 2016, and the organization is looking to build on its position, announced FAS Commissioner Tom Sharpe in a Nov. 7 GSA blog entry.
"Three years ago, we set out to build, operate and maintain a governmentwide marketplace to generate savings, improve efficiencies and deliver excellent customer service," said Sharpe, listing the three primary offerings of FAS as unbiased advice, better contracts and a full spectrum of services.
According to Sharpe, major initiatives introduced in the last three years have included category management, allowing for collective government buying power. GSA represents six of 10 largest categories. The IT Schedule 7, NASA SEWP and NIH NITAAC were named by the Office of Management and Budget as best-in-class contracting vehicles for laptops and desktops. And, as of FY16, 10,000 users have utilized the Acquisition Gateway category management information portal.
The Multiple Award Schedule Transformation Initiative was also "on the front burner in 2016" to provide a streamlined, value-based contracting solution, said Sharpe. In addition, the Formatted Product Tool was launched to standardize data and improve competitive pricing, and FAS published the Transactional Data Reporting rule — being rolled out in a pilot program to select Multiple Award Schedule products and services — to provide transparency into the federal marketplace.
Additional rules and Special Item Numbers have been introduced to increase flexibility for meeting customer and industry partner needs, mitigate legal risk, and allow for review and comment of policy changes, added Sharpe. And in April, FAS launched the Making It Easier initiative to tackle challenges that startups, small businesses and other government suppliers face when seeking to do business with the government.
Finally, Sharpe made note of FAS external and internal success metrics for 2016, citing a 6 percent increase in product and utilization rate across the FAS portfolio, a Customer Loyalty Survey result that jumped from 7.1 to 7.5 and employee engagement and satisfaction ratings near 76 percent, up 6 percent from fiscal 2015.
Sharpe concludes by saying that a direction for the next three years is being charted. His complete thoughts on 2016 and beyond can be viewed on GSABlog.
