The program could help with negotiating common enterprise-wide software licenses. Image: Thomas Pajot/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Biden administration has expanded a program aiming to better leverage the government’s buying power for goods and services that are common across agencies, saying that approach offers the potential for additional cost avoidances as well as for improvements in contractor performance.
“While federal agencies have unique needs and purchase highly-customized items, such as fighter jets and space telescopes, most of the goods and services purchased by agencies are common commercial items that most agencies use – such as IT hardware and software, facilities maintenance, and package delivery services,” says a White House fact sheet.
Key elements include:
* A centralized data management strategy for better sharing and analyzing acquisition data across agencies. “This information will be provided to agencies and their contracting professionals using on-demand tools and resources commensurate with the largest and most sophisticated buyers in the world,” it says.
* Negotiating common enterprise-wide software licenses, which “will help to reduce price variance, secure more favorable terms and conditions, and capture 25 percent in efficiency gains, avoiding the wasted effort of having each agency individually plan, research and negotiate for the same common requirement.”
* Guidance aimed at better defining needs for professional services to avoid later modifications at extra cost by conducting “acquisition workshops” involving program, acquisition, supply chain, IT and other stakeholders.
* Strategies to ensure that agencies “have the capability to negotiate good deals” when sole-source procurements are necessary, such as by having independent procurement teams review the performance and cost terms of a contract.
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