When the head of the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service shared plans with employees to manage roughly $400 billion in procurement this year, it marked a new phase for the agency.
The planned consolidation of procurement within GSA would mark a fourfold volume increase — folding in responsibilities from the Office of Personnel Management and potentially other agencies.
Modernizing procurement in an efficiency-driven consolidation environment presents unprecedented challenges for agencies, contractors and others throughout the ecosystem. But there are also opportunities to break down silos, increase transparency, reduce costs, and address reduced agency manpower. Contractors can support the modernization mission by taking an evolved, non-traditional approach to technology, processes and data, factoring in consolidation efforts while still achieving a more efficient model for procurement and fulfillment.
Key procurement modernization challenges
Agencies can’t manage what they can’t measure
Modernizing procurement to ensure this degree of consolidation is feasible starts and ends with a simple yet essential premise: You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Past and present inefficiencies are, in part, a byproduct of procurement and fulfillment systems that make it possible for stakeholders to do it wrong. Effective management of these systems cannot take place if decision makers cannot measure what is wrong to make it right.
While measuring sticks exist within agency systems, the ability to measure across systems is far more problematic. Disparate systems and non-standardized processes continue to fragment purchasing visibility, putting true consolidation at risk of becoming a patchwork solution.
Reduced manpower and transparency
Cost-cutting and consolidation-driven reductions in contracting and procurement staff create unique, if not unprecedented, challenges. Internally, agencies must operate with fewer experts available to manage workflows, analyze spend, and deploy new systems. For vendors, consolidation upends transparency and clarity when it comes to identifying the right agency stakeholders for critical and timely information, including Requests for Proposals (RFPs), slowing down procurement cycles and weakening collaboration.
Modernization strategies: Contractors
Map solutions to government workflows, not industry ones
Commercial best practices offer valuable lessons, but federal procurement requires solutions mapped to agency-specific processes, funding streams and compliance protocols. Rather than forcing private-sector models onto public agencies, contractors that tailor their platforms to how agencies do business will see better adoption and outcomes.
Aligning to government workflows also comes down to contractors building flexibility into procurement and fulfillment platforms and processes, enabling agencies to pivot as mission priorities or leadership changes without derailing progress.
Alleviate agency procurement cost burdens
Contractors should not treat modernization as a government problem to solve alone. Taking on recurring platform licensing fees rather than passing them onto an agency, setting baseline pricing, offering transparent cost models, and proactively supporting agencies with compliant solutions will accelerate awards and reinforce partnership
There is a cost to doing business with agencies that is not being reflected in current commercial procurement solutions. With agencies facing strict budgetary restraints, vendors cannot continue to operate in a vacuum and leave their customers to figure it out. Forward-thinking contractors will evaluate a re-imagined approach, including absorbing procurement platform fees, compliance costs, onboarding support, and other administrative expenses as the cost of doing business.
Deliver Amazon-like user journey aligned to agency workflows
Procurement consolidation efforts stumble when merging systems and information introduce a new issue: digital clutter, slowing down the ability for contract officers to access the information they need to work efficiently. For example, a Department of Homeland Security buyer who enters “water” in a legacy portal may scroll through a thousand SKUs ranging from industrial drums to sterile medical supplies. By shifting procurement to dynamic, user-friendly platforms, contractors can deliver results that include faster ordering, fewer mistaken line items and greater confidence on both sides of the transaction.
Provide auditable, real-time data
Transparency is central to modernization. Contractors must enable clear tracking of fulfillment milestones — order placed, shipment confirmed, goods accepted — offering agencies and oversight bodies real-time access to the status of every transaction to build trust and drive accountability.Auditable data goes hand in hand with delivering real-time visibility and around-the-clock access to procurement systems. Continuous monitoring, seamless status updates and accessible communication channels will maintain trust and momentum at every stage of the process.
As consolidation blurs the lines between contracting and fulfillment, contractors must step in with operational expertise, helping contract-heavy agencies adapt to new procurement responsibilities without sacrificing speed or compliance.
Modernization strategies: Agencies
To maximize the benefits of consolidation, agencies must proactively address internal challenges and set clear expectations for industry partners. Key strategies include:
Build measurement and visibility into procurement workflows
Agencies need real-time data and consistent measurement practices to fully understand procurement activities across departments. Accurate and immediate tracking enables smarter resource allocation, better auditing and faster course correction when needed. Agencies should break down program and acquisition silos and adopt modern electronic data interchange standards to enable seamless data sharing, reduce manual errors and accelerate procurement timelines.
Require contractors to own certain procurement modernization costs
Agencies must clearly establish that certain costs associated with modernization, compliance, onboarding and platform use are to be borne by vendors. Baking these expectations into RFPs from the start strengthens fairness and improves transparency in total cost evaluations.
Procurement consolidation will drive unprecedented challenges and opportunities for agencies and industry, demanding reimagined collaboration to meet modernization goals.
Ed Desser is founder of Flightline.
The post Agencies, contractors must modernize procurement to meet consolidation push first appeared on Federal News Network.