Burdensome Ordering Procedures for BPAs

Issue: The overly complex, burdensome ordering procedures for the establishment of Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) under the GSA Schedules program. Specifically the preference for multiple award BPAs over single award BPAs.

The strong preference of multiple award BPAs undermines the ability of customer agencies to achieve best value outcomes using the GSA Schedules program. It essentially limits the tools in the tool box for agencies that have specific requirements that would lend themselves to competition and award of a single BPA. Single award BPAs provide agencies with an effective tool to further leverage requirements. In contrast, generic, multiple award BPAs create vertical contract duplication (Level 1-GSA Schedule contract; Level 2 – Generic BPAs; and Level 3 – task order competitions. A great example of vertical contract duplication is the Managed Print Services FSSI BPAs.

Recommendation: The FAR should be revised to put single award BPAs on par with multiple award BPAs to the extent competition of specific, recurring requirements is the focus of the competition.

Generic multiple award BPAs should be limited to the maximum extent practicable. Customer agencies should utilize the GSA Schedule contracts as the platform for task order competitions---in essence agencies s go from Level 1 – GSA Schedule directly to Level 3 –task order competition.

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Idea No. 38

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1. Reporting and Compliance

Campaign 1: Reporting and compliance requirements - Currently, the Federal Government requires businesses to fill out a lot of complicated paperwork to do business with us. We know we can do better. We want to know what you are seeing – where can we reengineer paperwork and systems, eliminate duplicative reporting, reduce the frequency of reporting, and/or change outdated requirements? Please help us with our improvements by providing ideas and input on the following questions:

Question 1: What reporting or other compliance requirements are most burdensome and why?

Question 2: How would you streamline reporting and compliance requirements? (please cite or describe specific examples if you can)

Question 3: What other compliance information are you providing to the federal government outside the procurement process that could be used to reduce duplication?

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Expired on 05/05/2014
2. Procurement Rules and Practices

Campaign 2: Procurement rules and practices - We know entities doing business in the private sector have best practices and we’re anxious to learn about and replicate in the Federal Government wherever possible. We want to hear about innovative approaches to contracting that align with your business practices.

Question 1: What are the most effective ways to encourage innovative offers and best solutions?

Question 2: How can we reduce the cost of transactions for contractors?

Question 3: What are the best ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of acquisitions for information technology?

Question 4: What procurement rules or practices are most effective and which are least effective and why?

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3. Small Business Participation

Campaign 3: Participation by small and minority businesses and non-traditional government contractors - We know many businesses lack the resources and expertise to participate in the Federal marketplace. We welcome feedback – especially by entities that are not participating in Federal contracting – to understand what steps we can take to make your participation possible.

We welcome feedback on how to increase participation in Federal contracting.

Question 1: How can we make doing business with the government easier and less costly for small businesses, minority businesses, new entrants, and non-traditional government contractors?

Question 2: If you are a small business, minority owned business, or new entrant, what features of the federal acquisition system are most helpful and which are least helpful to you?

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