Acquisition Policy

  • Steven Grundman, a Lund Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., and former deputy undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Affairs, provides his perspective on how the Better Buying Power initiative has shaped DoD procurement.

    June 11, 2012
  • Larry Allen of Allen Federal joins host Mark Amtower to talk about changes in government procurement. June 11, 2012(Encore presentation June 25, 2012)

    June 11, 2012
  • Procurement chief Joe Jordan and SBA Administrator Karen Mills highlighted three long-time challenges in a new memo to senior agency officials. Agencies have until July 9 to detail steps they will take to address three areas.

    June 11, 2012
  • The National Institutes of Health has more than a decade of experience under its belt administering a governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC).

    June 11, 2012
  • Some small businesses are calling into question the benefits of the Obama administration's strategic sourcing initiative. They say the agencies are mandating the use of the office supplies BPA and putting more than 500 Schedule 75 holders at risk of losing their business. GSA, which runs Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI), said there still are plenty of sales to go around as the BPA accounts for less than half of the $1.4 billion office supplies market.

    June 11, 2012
  • All week long, Federal News Radio presents a multimedia special report on the changing face of acquisition. Throughout the series, Inside the World's Biggest Buyer, we hear from executive branch acquisition experts, lawmakers, auditors and industry experts on how the government can be a better buyer as it spends half a trillion dollars per year.

    June 11, 2012
  • Pia Romero is a contracts administrator at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and serves as an executive officer in the New Mexico Army National Guard. In a column for Federal News Radio's special report, Inside the World's Biggest Buyer, she says DoD's Rapid Acquisition Program provides items to the force, allows the contracting community the ability to participate and compete in the process, and can save money when applied properly.

    June 10, 2012
  • Agency introduces the new Demand Based Model that will focus resources on the products and services agencies need and want the most. GSA plans on closing two schedules and parts of 14 others to new offerors. GSA also will cut vendors who do little or no business on the schedule to help reduce administrative costs.

    June 08, 2012
  • NARFE president Joseph Beaudoin and Federal Times reporters Stephen Losey and Sean Reilly join host Mike Causey to talk about a wide variety of issues affecting federal workers. June 6, 2012

    June 06, 2012
  • In a first-ever interview, key officials from the Departments of Defense and State responsible for planning the transition to a diplomatic-led mission in Iraq discuss how the two agencies coordinated one of the largest overseas logistical operations since World War II. The article is the first part in Federal News Radio's special report, Trial by Fire: Overseas Contracting in Transition, part of the series, Inside the World's Biggest Buyer.

    June 06, 2012
  • The program launches initial operating capability today. GSA expects the first set of provisionally approved cloud service providers to be ready in December. In the meantime, agencies are holding vendors accountable for coming very close to FedRAMP standards.

    June 06, 2012
  • Mayer Brown LLP partner Marcia Madsen will talk about what government managers and contractors need to know when it comes to data collection and transparency. June 5, 2012(Encore presentation June 12, 2012)

    June 05, 2012
  • When the Defense Department began contingency contracting operations on a large-scale in Iraq in 2003 it was largely a trial by fire. Despite the best planning, DoD lacked the programs and practical solutions to handle the environment, officials say. Since then, commissions, panels and lawmakers have offered fixes and DoD has evolved to try to create "rock-solid" reforms. Federal News Radio examines these issues in the next part of our series, Inside the World's Biggest Buyer.

    June 05, 2012
  • The State Department's share of overseas contingency contracting has grown over the last few years as the department took on new activities and functions as the military departed Iraq. Still, the budget shows, the Defense Department is the main player in overseas contingency contracting. And there's no guarantee Congress won't turn to the foreign affairs budget in its efforts to dramatically reduce the deficit.

    June 05, 2012