President Obama said Wednesday he plans to nominate acting administrator Dan Tangherlini to become the official head of the General Services Administration.

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The General Service Administration is on the hunt for great ideas.

The acquisition and facilities management arm of the federal government is looking for ways to become leaner, said Dan Tangherlini, GSA’s acting administrator, and it is enlisting the help of its entire workforce.

The Great Ideas Hunt, which spawned 600 new concepts and more than 20,000 comments, is just one way GSA is looking to improve efficiency. All agencies should more fully embrace crowdsourcing, Tangherlini told attendees of Government Executive’s Excellence in Government conference.

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Simply put, a GSA Contract gives your organization access to the largest buying organization on the planet; The Federal Government. The average annual revenue for a GSA Contract holding company (from their federal business) is over $2 million per year. Once your GSA Contract is awarded, and you gain an understanding of the logistics of Federal Contracting, the level of success can be limitless.

The GSA issued the following statement on their Interact website on September 12th:

“After review and careful consideration, it has been determined Schedule 75 will remain closed to new offers for an additional 12 months. The Schedule will re-open effective October 1, 2013 and new offers will be accepted at that time.”

In case you are wondering what GSA Scehdule 75 covers, here is the official description:

“OFFICE PRODUCTS/SUPPLIES AND SERVICES AND NEW PRODUCTS/TECHNOLOGY - Includes Videotapes, Audiotapes, Tape Cartridges, Diskettes/Optical Disks, Disk Packs, Disk Cartridges, Anti-Glare Screens, Cleaning Equipment & Supplies, Ergonomic Devices, Next Day Desktop Delivery of Office Supplies, and Restroom Products such as Roll Toilet Tissue Dispensers, Toilet Tissue, Paper Towels, Toilet Seat Covers, Facial Tissues, and Soaps for Restroom Dispensers.”

Other GSA Schedules are currently being evaluated to be frozen for up to 3 years, so if you are considering a GSA Contract for your company, now is the time to pursue, and you will need a professional to get it done fast. Call us today to get started.

Accelerated Development & Support Corporation
GS-00F-0039Y
00CORP, SINS: C520 13, C871 3, C874 1

Washington DC is the Acronym capital of the world. Our government has a long name for everything. I keep a compiled list of all the best Definitions and Acronyms lists I come across, which can be found here:

Government Dictionary

A great tool for both new and experienced federal contractors. I just updated the page with a list of common GSA Contracting terms and acronyms. I hope you find this helpful, I recommend bookmarking for future use.

Trivision Inc.
GS-07F-0512Y: 541 4B
GS-07F-0513Y: 541 3, 541 4F

History:

Started with the downturn in the economy, where many companies folded, and those with stored resources jumped into the federal market because the government was one of the last big & stable spenders. This created a rapid increase in GSA Contract submissions. Over the last several years, the number of companies seeking Schedules contracts has roughly doubled and the volume of contract modifications has roughly tripled. GSA is confronting a serious staffing shortage of qualified contracting professionals.

Under Martha Johnson, major problems started collecting in the Agency, and nothing was done to address or fix them (other than photo-ops to plaster her picture across the GSA website). The GSA scandal caused her to resign (finally), then Dan Tangherlini stepped in with a steel-like, calculated, business-approach, and he started drafting the GSA’s plan of salvation. I think Tangherlini is the man for the job, and have faith in his abilities.

Problem:

Steve Kempf, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service:  “The MAS program is perpetually open to qualified new offers and while vibrant markets exist in some of the schedules, we have reached the point of saturation in others,”

In English: The GSA is successful and great, but there are areas lacking that need to be improved.

Solution:

Demand Based Model (DBM) – intended to allow the GSA to align its resources with areas of greatest need.

Federal Register (7/23/12): “GSA is proposing this operational change to enhance the performance of and modernize the MAS program in three key program areas: Small business viability, operational efficiency, and cost control.”

• Modernization of the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS)
• Canceling 8,000 obsolete Contracts
• Freezing 5 Schedules for 1-3 years (Starting February 2012)
  • 871 (Professional Engineering Services)
  • Allocating of GSA contract professionals to more heavily used schedule areas will hopefully make headway in the incredible backlog.

• 736 (Temporary Staffing Services)
• 75 (Office Products / Supplies)
• 73 (Food Service and Hospitality)
• 541 (Advertising and Marketing Services)

Results:

There are 3 Upsides and 2 Downsides.

• Upside 1 – These changes will save the GSA a reported $24 million a year in operating expenses. If managed properly then federal buyers will only experience a small drop in service when buying through the GSA. And there will be a fresher group of contractors to choose from.
• Upside 2 – Established Contractors in frozen schedules will enjoy limited competition, and a trimming of the fat in their schedules will make for quicker mod turnaround times.
• Upside 3 – Low performers do sap GSA resources, and the agency as a whole will emerge from this in better shape regarding acquisitions, which have doubled and tripled review times over the past 2 years.
• Downside 1 – Schedule 871 (Professional Engineering Services) offers many important solutions to federal buyers, especially DoD. These solutions change so fast, and new contractors are always creating new solutions for the federal market. So, in my opinion, freezing Schedule 871 will slow the DoD’s R&D efforts, which poses a national security risk. So, this was not a good GSA Schedule to freeze, but the others are very saturated, and can stand to be frozen for a year or two.
• Downside 2 – There will be a huge push of submissions before the February 2013 deadline. The GSA will either be deadlocked for years trying to catch-up once the door closes, or they will close the gate and many contractors will be locked out for 1-3 years. In the Federal Register, the GSA says “It is highly likely that nearly all of these offers will not generate business” but doesn’t know yet how this will be handled.

Sources:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-07-23/html/2012-17882.htm
http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/136643
http://fcw.com/articles/2012/07/23/gsa-demand-based-model-5-steps.aspx?goback=%2Egde_64283_member_139273744
http://smbiz.house.gov/Calendar/EventSingle.aspx?EventID=297694

Time for strong authentication?<br>Clarification added September 21, 2012 12:42 PM: What do you think about keyless tokens ? … with no infrastructure?

If there’s a bid for planning a large conference, is it possible to provide the some of the products without planning the conference?

Porque Jalisco con la fortaleza de su abundante mente de obra, con buen nivel de ingles calificada e industria electronica no ha podido despegar en las areas de Avionica y otros segmentos aeroespaciales como lo ha hecho Queretaro en la manufactura aeroespacial?

Una hipotesis es que hay pocas empresas certificadas e …

By definition a start-up company in government contracting has no direct government agency past performance projects to site in meeting the requirement in requests for proposals (RFP’s) for historical references to similar projects in terms of size, duration and complexity.

Past performance data must be specific to the …

Today, Chicago public school teachers went on strike. On the same day, a news story came out saying that 79% of Chicago 8th Graders are not proficient in reading:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-department-education-79-chicago-8th-graders-not-proficient-reading

Naturally, parents are upset, city officials are spinning up for action and u …