On July 9th, 2013 the General Services Administration (GSA) launched a new website platform for government-managed reverse auctions, reverseauctions.gsa.gov. This program, available through the National Information Technology Commodity Program (NITCP) of GSA’s Federal Acquisition service (FAS) marks the beginning of a change in the way businesses will compete for government contracts.

The use of mobile devices is increasing rapidly and forever changing the way in which we conduct not only our personal lives, but the way government agencies conduct business. In fact, mobile strategies have recently been promoted at the highest levels of government. In May 2012, the Obama Administration launched the Digital Government Strategy. At that point, only 35% of adults owned a mobile device, but today that number is nearly 50%. Additionally, Nielsen reported an 89% increase in mobile data usage between 2010 and 2011. However, only 25% of government agencies have a mobile strategy in place.

Accelerating a new employee’s productivity rate is a goal that every agency strives to achieve. The onboarding process involves many time consuming elements. Everything from preparing new-hire paperwork, to ensuring equipment is ready on time, and reducing the onboarding cycle from days to minutes can help your agency save millions of dollars and increase productivity rates for new employees. How can you enable new hire productivity across every level of your organization? Here are some tips to ensure your new employees can hit the ground running.

After HP and Lockheed Martin both issued cloud security authorizations by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a dispute between Amazon Web services and IBM came about over a CIA cloud infrastructure contract. In addition to this, the recent release of Dell’s Cloud for U.S. Government makes it plain to see that the future of computing lies in the cloud.

Recently, a contractor lost a bid due to poor past performance history that was not included in their proposal. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) heard their case and determined that it was acceptable to use past performance history not included in the contractor’s proposal. The GAO also stated that the contractor should have explained the poor past performance evaluation. This past performance review was registered with the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), a website that government agencies use to access contractor past performance data. Not many contractors are familiar with this site and not all government agencies are using it yet, as it is relatively new.

In good times, trimming operational costs is an ongoing goal. In tough times, it’s a necessity. Regardless, recruiting occurs at all times, good and bad. Growth increases personnel numbers in good times, and opportunistic or replacement hiring occurs when budgets tighten. By using creative recruiting strategies in synergy with the latest technology developments, you can reduce recruiting costs while achieving exceptional results.