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GSA is pooling the government’s buying power in office supplies, telecommunications and delivery services to obtain lower prices for agencies. Learn More

Agency spending is typically fragmented across multiple departments, programs, and functions. As a result, the Federal government acts more like scores of unrelated medium-sized businesses rather than the world’s largest purchaser, and agencies often rely on hundreds of separate contracts for many commonly used items, with prices that vary widely. This often prevents agencies from receiving the best price they could, leading to an unacceptable waste of taxpayer dollars. To address this waste, agencies are reviewing their internal buying patterns and identifying opportunities to combine contracts to achieve significant savings for recurring requirements. OMB is working with agencies to identify commodities that all agencies need and are likely to buy with similar terms and conditions.

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Office of Federal Procurement Policy Homepage
Testimony on Interagency and Agency-wide Contracting Vehicles
GSA’s Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative
Progress in Government-wide Strategic Sourcing

 

The Administration is sponsoring several government-wide strategic sourcing efforts under the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI), three of which have acquisition vehicles that have been in place for several years. Second generation FSSI acquisition vehicles for office supplies and domestic express delivery services were implemented during FY 2010 and had achieved impressive results by the end of FY 2011, the first full fiscal year in which they were available. Total office supplies purchases through FSSI were nearly $200 million and generated savings of $18 million (9%) over FY 2009 prices. Spending for domestic express delivery services through FSSI that year were $109 million and generated savings of $31 million (22%) over prices paid through the first generation FSSI solution. During this same year, a first generation FSSI acquisition vehicle for wireless telecommunications expense management services (TEMS) generated $5.3 million in savings on sales of $29.6 million.

During FY 2011, FSSI acquisition vehicles were awarded for print management devices and services, which include devices that can also copy, scan, and fax documents. Use of these FSSI vehicles, along with changes in the effectiveness with which agencies use these devices, is projected to offer agencies savings of up to 30% of their baseline printing and copying costs. Early in FY 2012, a solicitation for an FSSI acquisition vehicle for wireless devices and rate plans was issued with awards projected for the third quarter of this fiscal year. Agencies that use these new FSSI vehicles are expected to be able to save 35% over their current spend totals.

FSSI is also actively exploring opportunities to group agencies’ purchases of IT commodities, such as software licenses and IT hardware. Agencies that have developed enterprise-wide acquisition vehicles for these commodities have reported significant savings which we expect to replicate or better under FSSI.