Region 7 Industry Day February 24, 2016

New and Ongoing MAS Initiatives Competitive Pricing Initiative Transactional Data Reporting Category Management & the Acquisition Gateway Making It Easier Formatted Product Tool

Competitive Pricing Initiative Dynamic and Competitive Pricing tools to enhance price analysis --Use of horizontal price analysis. Manual searches through Advantage! and other websites can now be done through automated tools. --Easier to identify when items are identical and when they are not. --Identifies areas where other factors such as freight, packing, packaging, or other differences could impact cost. --Ultimately allows for more thorough and accurate common sense price analysis.

Competitive Pricing Initiative Standardize Part Numbers and UPC-A are used to facilitate price comparisons - Solicitation updates were recently completed to include the requirement to provide manufacturer part numbers and UPC-A information where commercially available. --collection of part numbers and UPC-A info is a process, not expected overnight --not all items have UPC-A info and vendors are not required to provide where it is not commercially required --MPNs should be those provided by the manufacturer

Transactional Data Reporting The Transactional Data Rule is still making it’s way through the review and approval process. Once the final rule is posted in the Federal Register (anticipated in May, 2016) full details will be available regarding transactional data reporting. Training will be provided to vendors prior to release on the new transactional reporting system. Training will also be provided to your Contracting Officers and Contract Specialists on the TDR repository and new reporting requirements.

Category Management and the Acquisition Gateway Category Management is a commercial best practice the federal government is applying to buy smarter and act more like a single enterprise. Throughout the process, it involves developing market expertise and leveraging shared best practices, sourcing strategies, and demand management solutions, organized around core categories of goods and services the government buys.

Category Management and the Acquisition Gateway Customers will enjoy savings through decreased contract duplication and improved access to analytics, pricing, and other relevant information. Category Management will become a recognized catalyst to encourage federal cooperation in designing common requirements to allow strategic focus on achieving and improving federal procurement mandates e.g. small business utilization and sustainability. FAS will leverage a data-driven business management culture to develop better solutions for the marketplace and drive increases in government-wide spend under management (SUM).

Category Management and the Acquisition Gateway The Acquisition Gateway is the workspace for acquisition professionals to learn, connect, and act upon acquisition information. The Gateway makes solution comparisons, market research tools, expert articles, lessons learned, and prices paid data available to help acquisition professionals achieve better outcomes, faster, at each step of the acquisition lifecycle

Category Management and the Acquisition Gateway In the spirit of data transparency, GSA has gone live with a public view of the Acquisition Gateway, giving non-government users access to a subset of what is available to federal government employees. The public can access as much of the Gateway as possible and can experience the same user-centric design as federal users. The Gateway enables that access while protecting the integrity of critical federal data and the security of private information supplied by contractors and others.

Click on the Non-Federal Government & Public Users button for access. New Initiatives The Acquisition Gateway can be accessed at the following website: https://hallways.cap.gsa.gov/homepage/welcome.html Click on the Non-Federal Government & Public Users button for access.

New Initiatives Making It Easier – GSA is planning many new initiatives that will make obtaining GSA Schedule contracts easier and more streamlined for the vendors. Stay tuned to GSA Chatter and Interact for upcoming announcements regarding Making it Easier.

New Initiatives Formatted Product Tool – As a follow-on to the Competitive Pricing Initiative (CPI), GSA has been working on the Formatted Product Tool (FPT.) The tool will make evaluation of new offers and modification requests smoother and easier for customers and GSA. Stay tuned for communication from GSA on the FPT coming in the April/May timeframe.

Contact Info: Kellie Stoker Cost / Price Analyst 817-850-8296 kellie.stoker@gsa.gov

QUESTIONS?