According to the General Accounting Office, the General
Services Administration needs to take a more active role in
helping agencies procure IT products and services, by
developing the capability to provide agencies with the
information and analysis they need to make their procurement
spending more effective.
In recent testimony before the House’s Committee on
Government Reform, GAO said that the process by which
agencies establish requirements for the Federal Supply
Service and its products and services is decentralized
and uncoordinated, and that agencies lack knowledge of
the extent to which purchases overlap and buying power is
diluted, because they typically handle it exclusively
through expensive FSS and Federal Technology Service
contracts.
Agencies can save money, according to GAO, by using a more
strategic approach to FSS and FTS procurement and
leveraging buying power for volume discounts, as was the
case with the Air Force, which saved an estimated $3
million by buying 13,000 computers in bulk for different
units that had purchased them separately in the past,
said GAO.
In response to earlier recommendations by a GAO management
consultant that GSA reduce the overlap between still growing
FSS and FTS IT sales, marketing functions and contract
offerings, GSA separated their functions, giving market
research and marketing of all GSA products and services,
including IT, to FSS, and primary responsibility for sales
and customer account planning and management to FTS; GSA
transferred FTS contract development and maintenance
responsibilities to FSS; it decided to not renew some
contracts after establishing a contract review board, and
GSA created a new FTS Office of Professional Services to
offer assisted procurement services beyond IT and
telecommunications. Get Report