Open Dialogue on Improving How to Do Business with the Federal Government Ideas

Issue: The overly complex, burdensome ordering procedures for the establishment of Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) under the GSA Schedules program. Specifically the preference for multiple award BPAs over single award BPAs. The strong preference of multiple award BPAs undermines the ability of customer agencies to achieve best value outcomes using the GSA Schedules program. It essentially limits the tools in the tool ...more »

Issue: Intellectual property rights as currently set forth in GSA Schedule contracts are unclear, cumbersome and unduly burdensome for contractors. The End User License Agreement (EULA) requirements remain unclear in IT Schedule 70. As such, each license agreement must be reviewed by the contracting officer and legal counsel. Recommendation: A basic set of terms should be developed that identify the key requirements ...more »

Issue: Intellectual property rights as currently set forth in GSA Schedule contracts are unclear, cumbersome and unduly burdensome for contractors. The End User License Agreement (EULA) requirements remain unclear in IT Schedule 70. As such, each license agreement must be reviewed by the contracting officer and legal counsel. Recommendation: A basic set of terms should be developed that identify the key requirements ...more »

Issue: Restrictive experience requirements under the GSA Schedule program. For example, under IT Schedule 70 a company must have been in business for at least two years to be eligible for a contract. The GSA Schedule experience requirements limit access to new, innovation companies providing cutting edge technologies. It is an unnecessary barrier to entry to the federal market place. Recommendation: Eliminate the mandatory ...more »

Over the last decade, the number of laws, regulations and provisions that apply to commercial item have dramatically increased. For example, in 1996 under 52.212-5(b) there were 17 provisions of law or executive orders identified as applicable to commercial item contracts. In 2012, the number has climbed to 51. The resulting explosion of statutes and regulations applicable to commercial item contracting increases complexity, ...more »

GSA needs to have a single senior manager to advance the Schedules Program. This +30Billion dollar program needs to be updated to allow significant taxpayer savings and eliminate contract duplication.There is no one in charge of this multi-billion dollar commercial services and products program.

Issue: Restrictive experience requirements under the GSA Schedule program. For example, under IT Schedule 70 a company must have been in business for at least two years to be eligible for a contract. The GSA Schedule experience requirements limit access to new, innovation companies providing cutting edge technologies. It is an unnecessary barrier to entry to the federal market place. Recommendation: Eliminate the mandatory ...more »

Over the last decade, the number of laws, regulations and provisions that apply to commercial item have dramatically increased. For example, in 1996 under 52.212-5(b) there were 17 provisions of law or executive orders identified as applicable to commercial item contracts. In 2012, the number has climbed to 51. The resulting explosion of statutes and regulations applicable to commercial item contracting increases complexity, ...more »

Rather than continually develop more government unique rules and regulations, encourage the use of commercial business practices and standards in procurement/acquisition. Why? Creates opportunity for government to benefit from innovations, technologies and services found in the broad marketplace. Lowers the cost of doing business with the government for companies. Allows quicker incorporation of latest technologies ...more »

Having held a GSA contract for years, I make the following observations/recommendations: 1) There needs to be a mandated response time from GSA COs and buyers. We had a CO that never returned e-mails or calls. Truly never. We finally got transferred to a new officer but it still can take days to get responses. If there were no deadlines, that would be great. The same holds true for buyers who are responsible for ...more »

A significant challenge in procuring cloud-enabled IT services involves structuring an appropriate method of payment. For something simple, like Infrastructure as a Service, agencies should be able to contract directly with a cloud service provider without having to fund upfront (in effect, pre-paying) for a projected level of service consumption. These types of procurement arrangements are typically fixed price. This ...more »

One possible solution to reduce the complexity associated with commercial item acquisition would be to address the burden of providing Commercial Sales Practices ("CSP") information in response to large contract solicitations (e.g. FSS, VA National Contract, DHA E-CAT). While we acknowledge that CSPs may be helpful to enable the determination of fair and reasonable pricing, the nature and type of data requested varies ...more »