After months of speculation GSA announced on Friday that a new single Professional Services Schedule is in the works and unfortunately, this is not going to pretty for some! The new GSA “Consolidated GSA Schedule” will be called The Professional Services Multiple Award Schedule or “PSS” for short. Although the exact migration process has not been announced by GSA and future application details are still yet to be hashed out, the GSA expects to complete the consolidation of current applicable Schedules by December 2015. Starting with GSA’s goals, here is what you need to know.

If you are an IT government contractor – this is for you! Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) are required to be FedRAMP certified by June 2014. Current deployments of cloud-based services in use by Federal agencies must be compliant with FedRAMP guidelines by June 2014. Commercial providers that offered cloud-based services to the Federal government or in the acquisition process prior to June 5, 2012, must have a FedRAMP P-ATO. Government agencies have to move one system to a cloud provider within 12 months of project start, and two more systems within 18 months of launch, by the end of 2015.

Expiring government contracts are a great way for government contractors to compete for government business. These are viable opportunities that are currently being funded. When reviewing an expiring contract, make sure to review and understand six specific contract areas:

If your company has ventured into traditional government procurement, you are probably well aware of the downfalls of the procurement processes. For years, traditional public sector procurement processes have been criticized for being slow, inflexible and for limiting the purchases of goods and services from a select amount of vendors by government agencies. These issues with traditional government procurement processes still persist today. To combat these downfalls, many organizations have devoted resources to improve the processes and overcome hurdles that are detrimental to government innovation and efficiency. If you currently are involved or interested in selling to the government, you should be aware of some of the improvements that are occurring in the government procurement process. The State of California is now implementing a redesigned Request for Proposal (RFP) and IT planning process to prevent backtracking and speed up the deployment of new projects. Traditional government RFPs with long timelines, complex rules, and tight guidelines around liability has discouraged some of the most innovative IT companies from entering the government marketplace. To help amend these restrictions and find better ways to procure technology, North Carolina plans to test products before purchasing them in the state’s new innovation center. This initiative will ensure that products can actually fulfill the statement of work and meet budget requirements. BidSync, a provider of eProcurement solutions, has created a vendor management portal to consolidate the entire procurement process called FastFWD. From soliciting vendors, receiving bid notifications, managing contracts and requesting purchases, this tool provides government agencies with greater ability to manage and grow their networks of qualified vendors, while reducing the amount of time and manpower needed to manage these relationships. FastFWD utilizes new startups to launch new projects and solve old problems from the lack of early engagement with vendors that have led to restrictive or limited solutions. To learn more about the improvements being made to the procurement process, read “5 New Approaches to Government Procurement.”

During the duration of the government shutdown, there are a few things that can be done by government contractors to improve the position of their firm(s) in the Federal marketplace and realign their offerings with more essential government functions. Government contractors can use this downtime to reassess company goals and government sales strategies. As a result, government contractors will be able to create more business value for public sector customers in the next Fiscal Year 2014 while improving on their overall performance. It is important for government contractors to understand what the government shutdown means for their company, and how counteracting the problems presented by the shutdown will be critical to their success.

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers are not the only ones posting pictures and content on social media platforms. Federal, state, and local government agencies have been implementing commercially provided media technologies to promote their services and support their missions. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted several distinct methods that 23 of 24 major agencies are using to increase citizen engagement through social media platforms. Such activities include reposting information available on official agency websites, posting information not available on agency websites, soliciting comments from the public, responding to comments on content, and providing links to non-government websites.