GSA unveils modernized IT tool procurement strategy

The General Services Administration unveiled a new initiative Tuesday that it says is aimed at helping agencies gain easier access to IT tools and shifting how the federal government approaches procurement.

The OneGov Strategy is meant to modernize how the government buys goods and services and calls for more direct engagement with Original Equipment Manufacturers. The GSA said in a press release that OEMs “will benefit from a more direct and predictable engagement model.” 

Taxpayers, meanwhile, will benefit from a “smarter, more secure federal IT enterprise” under the strategy, the GSA said. While agencies have, in the past, bought software through resellers, the GSA believes this approach prioritizes direct relationships for enhanced outcomes.

Stephen Ehikian, the agency’s acting administrator, called the OneGov Strategy “a bold step forward” in GSA’s “mission to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. It’s about acting as one — aligning to our scale, standards and security to meet the needs of today’s government while prepping for the future.” 

The initiative aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order that calls on agencies to procure commercially available services and products “to the maximum extent practicable,” including those that can be modified to fulfill an agency’s need. 

The strategy, GSA said, is meant to evolve over time to include hardware, cybersecurity services, platforms, infrastructure and other tools. The first phase of this initiative, however, will be focused on giving agencies more access to IT tools with standardized terms and pricing. 

Agencies’ relationships with OEMs are meant to be deeper, to ensure “more transparent pricing, streamlined acquisition and improved cybersecurity protections,” the press release notes.

GSA has made headlines recently for criticizing top-10 consulting firms as part of a waste-reduction exercise. The agency had asked the firms to self-identify contracts that could be terminated to save the government money. In a letter to the firms, Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said “the efforts to propose meaningful cost savings were wholly insufficient, to the point of being insulting.”

Gruenbaum said in the OneGov Strategy release that the initiative “is a big win for both government and industry. We’re creating a more consistent, scalable and efficient way to buy technology — one that benefits agencies, OEMs and taxpayers alike. We expect this approach to have similar success and benefits across other categories.”