Government Contracting Blog

The mission continues to modernize and streamline the federal procurement process—GSA announced this week they are launching their OneGov Strategy, a new initiative helping agencies gain access to IT tools. This announcement follows several Executive Orders (EO) shifting how the federal government acquires goods and services, including Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 2.0 and the EO expanding GSA’s role in procurement. Let’s review what we know about the OneGov Strategy and what it’ll look like for contractors and buyers.

Siri, Alexa, Monica, Claude—we love naming Artificial Intelligence (AI) bots with human names. The General Services Administration (GSA) joined the trend with their new tool, CODY. CODY, which is based on the Irish term for “helpful one,” is a new procurement automation tool built to streamline procurement processes at GSA. GSA announced recently that CODY is available for use across the federal government. With the recent Executive Order (EO) calling for the massive expansion of procurement under GSA, they’re going to need all the help they can get.

Take a moment to think about all the sensitive information the United States federal government has access to: tax returns, Social Security numbers, medical information. Handling this trove of data makes cybersecurity perhaps more important for the federal government than any other entity. Recognizing this, the federal government has created programs like CMMC and FedRAMP.

A lot of GSA Schedule contractors think they can only sell their products and services to the federal government, but did you know you can sell to state, local, educational, and tribal entities too? Under certain state and local programs, you can offer the same products and services you sell to these entities, greatly expanding the marketplace for your company. One of the most widely used programs is Cooperative Purchasing, which applies to IT and Security and Protections contractors.

Information Technology (IT) modernization in the federal government has been on the rise for several years, and there's no slowing down in sight. It's safe to say that IT modernization has become a top priority in federal procurement, even with the change in administrations.

The GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) allows contractors to sell their products or services to the federal government through specific Special Item Numbers (SINs) that align with their commercial business practices. If your business offers Information Technology (IT) software, products, or professional services, there are multiple SINs that could be applicable to your GSA MAS offer within the IT Category. However, most IT SINs require offerors to follow instructions, prepare supporting documents, and draft technical narratives beyond the standard requirements. For example, to have the Highly Adaptive Cybersecurity Services (HACS) SIN awarded, offerors must submit two supporting technical narratives demonstrating past performance, pass an oral technical evaluation, adhere to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards, and more.