21 for 2021: Opportunities to improve federal procurement

This column was originally published on Roger Waldron’s blog at The Coalition for Government Procurement and was republished here with permission from the author.

As we kickoff 2021, with a new administration and a new Congress, the Coalition for Government Procurement takes this opportunity to highlight 21 opportunities to improve the procurement system’s support of agency missions:

1. Assisted services — leveraging acquisition capabilities to support agency mission improvement;
2. Category management and best in class contracts — time to pause and re-assess;
3. Cloud computing and consumption-based pricing — unlocking best value for customer agencies by promoting competition through the reduction of market barriers;
4. Cooperative purchasing – in the face of current challenges faced by state and local governments, leveraging the schedules will be helpful;
5. Cybersecurity and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification — the impact of SolarWinds and the coordination of compliance;
6. Defense Production Act — new efforts to ramp up supplies and reliable domestic supply chains;
7. Defense Logistics Agency-Department of Veterans Affairs shared services – reducing friction in the logistics system;
8. Domestic sourcing – a holistic approach to the incentives and investments critical to the domestic industrial base;
9. Electronic cataloging – unfulfilled potential for DLA’s E-Cat to support VA and reduce the dependence on open market purchase card transactions;
10. E-commerce — what we learn from the pilot and the implications for government policies;
11. Engagement with industry — VA’s opportunity to reboot medical facility engagement with industry;
12. Going green — what does it mean for government and industry; the Coalition’s Green Committee to engage stakeholders across the procurement and environmental communities;
13. IT modernization – new approach to management accompanying investments in the future of government;
14. Multiple award schedule pricing reform — policy and operational reforms needed to ensure best value mission support; the world and government have moved beyond the policies of the 1980s; what is in store for a $26 billion MAS services market?
15. New administration — tracking policy developments and what the flurry of EOs mean for contractors;
16. Other transaction agreements — procurement at the speed of need and the approach to follow-on production;
17. Searching for an OASIS — what the future holds for the General Services Administration’s successful governmentwide services acquisition program;
18. Section 876 — two years after the grant of authority, the future is now;
19. Section 889 — harmonizing the competing interests in addressing threats from China;
20. The industrial funding fee  — with market changes, it’s time for a review;
21. VA modernization — electronic health records, Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support and financial systems are huge opportunities and challenges for VA.

As we pursue these top 21 opportunities, Coalition members recognize that transition years such as 2021 tend to be dynamic in nature, presenting new areas of interest or unforeseen takes on existing areas of interest. Whatever the subject, we look forward to engaging with new and returning stakeholders across the procurement community to bring best value solutions and meeting customer agency missions on behalf of the American people.

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