Acquisition

Ideas to Improve Federal Acquisition and the Better Buy Project

From The Acquisition Corner This week saw the launch of the Better Buy Project, a joint project of the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council in conjunction with the General Services Administration. According to the website: …The acquisition process represents one of the most important areas of collaborationRead… Read more »

Department of Defense (DoD) Business Transformation Agency (BTA) EP&I Title 5 violations – part two

From the Government Business Examiner Continued from part one-Department of Defense (DoD) Business Transformation Agency (BTA) EP&I Title 5 violations – part one Continued from part one Not only were tax dollars wasted, but the waste was sanctioned by leadership. And, with the mission of the warfighter a main BTA proclamation, it has occurred toRead… Read more »

Department of Defense (DoD) Business Transformation Agency (BTA) EP&I Title 5 violations – part one

From the Government Business Examiner by Donna L. Quesinberry As the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) champion for driving and accelerating improvements to business operations across the DoD and federal government – the Business Transformation Agency (BTA) is supposed to serve as a magnet that attracts talented and dedicated professionals thereby creating a model for transformativeRead… Read more »

With New Fiscal Year Comes New OMB Guidance

From The Acquisition Corner As Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 is now underway, The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be ramping up its guidance on improving acquisition outcomes, which includes a broad section of areas to include competition, contract types, workforce, outsourcing, and acquisition practices. I will be covering theses issues in more depthRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Congressional Health Benefits Could Soon Change

Senators debating health-care reform legislation have unanimously approved a proposal requiring members of Congress and their staffs to obtain health insurance through new state-based purchasing exchanges set up by the health-care reform bill under consideration. Lawmakers and their staffs could no longer buy health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program beginning in 2013Read… Read more »

Mixing Up Some Awesome Sauce – GovLoop’s Sale to GovDelivery

By now you’ve most likely read the news stories and early blogs about GovDelivery’s acquisition of GovLoop, the government social networking site that has rapidly grown from zero to nearly 20,000 members in just over a year. GovLoop founder Steve Ressler broke the news on GovLoop via a blog post, and GovDelivery CEO Scott BurnsRead… Read more »

Capturing Past Performance Data is Not Enough

From The Acquisition Corner As acquisition reform continues to gain steam, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy are continuing to craft guidance and procedures to improve the acquisition process in hopes of saving money on contract costs and reduce the use of “high-risk” contract types. These improvements willRead… Read more »

Hitting a Home Run; Baseball and the Acquisition Process

From The Acquisition Corner An interesting post by Bill Gormley of Washington Management Group described parallels on two of my passions, baseball and improving the acquisition process. It is an interesting read and a fun way of discussing what can be a somewhat difficult process and subject. Some specifics points he makes and my take:Read… Read more »

Buy America? Bye, American Jobs

Here’s the ultimate irony, one with dramatic consequences to US families: a federal policy to stimulate our flagging economy that actually puts more of our jobs at risk. “Buy American” provisions found within this year’s $788 billion stimulus spending package expose US workers in several manufacturing sectors to job loss. It’s that the stipulations ofRead… Read more »

GSA Billing

So which is better, Centralized or Direct Bills when using GSA contracts? I get the impression that most agencies do NOT examine their GSA monthly invoices closely anyway so… Is it better to simply let GSA pay vendors the way it’s done with Centralized billing or should the vendor send bills directly to the customerRead… Read more »