New Paradigm for Efficient Contract Management
Today more than ever, the Federal government must ensure that it spends money wisely and eliminates waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. With more than one out of every six dollars of Federal government spending going to contractors, it is imperative that contract actions result in the best value for the taxpayer.
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plays a central role in shaping the policies and practices federal agencies use to acquire the goods and services they need to carry out their responsibilities. OFPP was established by Congress in 1974 to provide overall direction for government-wide procurement policies, regulations, and procedures and to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in acquisition processes. More information about OFPP is available here.
Among its many other challenges, OFPP has been trying to solve contract duplication issues for almost a decade. Prior attempts to manage and shrink existing federal government contracts has resulted in mixed success with overall subpar results. OFPP is now using the General Services Administration (GSA)’s category management structure to identify and reduce the number of contracts associated with technology, professional services, and eight other spending categories (excluding Defense-centric spending categories). Going forward, each category will have a manager to develop new goals and strategies for 2018 across four broad areas as a means of identifying and reducing contract duplication as well as ensuring small businesses aren’t going to be left behind.
OFPP’s new contract-management strategy targets a 13% cumulative reduction of unnecessary duplicative contracts by the end of fiscal year 2020. So far, OFPP has shown some promising results, reducing the number of duplicative multiple award contracts by 239 over the last five years while spending increased to over $111B per year. OFPP believes this new strategy will result in managers focusing on reducing costs and increasing the deployment of best-in-class solutions as well as reducing duplicative efforts, improving communications through better vendor management, sharing transactions data to enhance procurement processing, and maximizing small business participation. More details on OFPP’s efforts may be found here.
As a seasoned and successful Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) prime contractor for the Federal government, St. Michael’s Inc. understands government agencies’ culture, challenges, and goals in dealing with contractual, financial, and audit efforts. We bring successful contract management administrative experience to our clients by leveraging over 11 years of relationship management experience between our firm, clients, customers, teaming partners business associates, and approving government agencies.