Government Contracting Blog

The Information Technology Vendor Management Office (ITVMO) in collaboration with the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) held the Second Annual ITVMO Summit in May 2026, to discuss the current and future state for federal IT acquisition approaches. Established in 2020, ITVMO supports agencies in driving efficiencies when purchasing IT products and services and ensuring a unified and streamlined governmentwide IT acquisition strategy.

Yesterday, President Trump signed the highly anticipated Executive Order (EO) "Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security," establishing a voluntary framework that allows the federal government to review certain advanced AI models before they are released publicly. The EO also directs federal agencies to strengthen cybersecurity capabilities and work with the private sector to evaluate emerging AI risks.

With a GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS), you can access a wide network of federal, state, and local agencies looking to procure products and services. One misconception contractors have, however, is they can sit back and watch the orders roll in the minute their contract is awarded. This isn't true for the commercial world, and generally isn't true for the public sector either. While you are part of a unique pool of contractors, you still have to compete with other companies for business, and be proactive about advertising your solutions to government agencies.

If you offer products under the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program, especially Commercially Available Off-the-Shelf (COTS) items, you have probably seen the term “market threshold” before. You may have even experienced the dreaded scenario of being told that your proposed pricing exceeds the market threshold and cannot be accepted. However, you might not understand exactly what the “market threshold” is. That isn’t your fault, as how GSA calculates the market threshold has been fairly opaque. GSA uses an algorithm to calculate the market threshold, which serves as a marker of the upper limit on pricing that GSA is likely to accept for a specific item, at least without justification.

Out of all the requirements within the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Program, the minimum sales requirement may seem the most daunting. Especially because the Trump Administration's mission to eliminate government waste and improve efficiency has made certain regulations including the minimum sales requirement more important for contractors to follow.

OASIS+, or One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services +, recently wrapped up the final Phase I contract awards and released the first batch of Phase II contract awards. Phase II began on January 12, 2026, and is still in early stages of rolling admissions. As many offerors discovered in Phase I, the contract proposal process is not easy. This article will tackle one of the most important, and often confusing, components of that proposal process: selecting a Qualifying Project (QP).