1. Professional Services at FAS June 9, 2014
Presented by:
Tiffany Hixson
Regional Commissioner NW Arctic Region and
GSA Professional Services Category Executive
Federal Acquisition Service

5. category management
My second, and newest role, is as GSA's professional services
category executive. As category executive my initial
responsibilities are two fold:
 The first is to support federal agency acquisition
leadership in better managing their professional services
spend.
 The second is to ensure FAS's contracts, analytical and
online tools, and acquisition support offerings -- like
training and direct customer support services -- are
managed well and provided in a comprehensive,
coordinated, and outcome focused manner.

6. Why Category Management?
Expertise + Data = Smarter Purchasing
Provides federal buyers with ready access to, and expert analysis of, a full array of purchase and pricing data, qualified suppliers, acquisition vehicles; and procurement resources
Guides buyers to the best solutions for them, and ultimately those in the best interest of the taxpayers, regardless of who manages that solution
Offers a holistic view of the landscape so actions can be taken to reduce or eliminate redundancy and increase efficiency
Leads to smarter decisions, better purchasing options & saved dollars Category management is how the most successful Fortune 500 companies approach acquisition
There are currently an estimated 500 federal departments
and agencies that purchase goods and services. With no
universal strategy or system for coordinating those
purchases, the government market is fragmented with many
individual purchases occurring within agencies and across
duplicative contracts.
FAS is leading the way to a more strategic approach to
purchasing by developing marketplace expertise in 17 of the
most common categories of products and services in8
government procurement. Category Management is about
developing and executing a strategy for product or service
categories that treats each category as one market space.
Once implemented, federal agencies will be able to rely on
category managers for market intelligence and expert
guidance on acquisition in each of those categories. The
Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) is a good
example and a step towards government-wide category
management as it takes a coordinated and strategic
approach to purchasing by categories. Category
Management will streamline government purchasing into
controlled categories, which will reduce or eliminate
redundancy and increase efficiency by focusing on five key
areas:
 Optimizing contract vehicles & managing the
Landscape
 Managing data collection and analysis
 Leveraging industry relationships
 Maximizing customer relationships
 Growing and sharing expertise

8. common acquisition platform
Make Title bigger – maybe change icon

9. business model modernization
Make Title bigger

10. expanded services
Make Title bigger

11. Current Initiatives Award and kick-off OASIS
One Professional Services Schedule
AIMS Schedule moving to Region 10 in October
To support these FAS objectives, during the next 18 to 24 months
I will be focused on accomplishing five initiatives:
 First, organizationally aligning all of FAS's professional
OASIS, OASIS SB, and as well as the FABS and AMES
services offerings -- those I currently manage and others like
schedules.
 Second, providing new and transformed offerings
o OASIS and OASIS SB are two examples of new
offerings we are currently deploying10
o Others will include improving or consolidating our
exploring our federal partners requirements for other
existing professional services Schedules as well as
types of professional services contracts.
o One area we will be reviewing is logistics support
in place to support those needs.
contracts. Specifically, do we have the right contracts
 Third, providing federal partners with comprehensive
analytics and business intelligence about their professional
strategies. Our initial focus will be on agencies with the top
services spend and opportunities to improve their acquisition
10 spend in professional services as well as the VA.
 Fourth, we will focus on improving policy and tools for FAS
significant effort to review and standardize labor categories
managed professional services contracts. This includes a11
and collect prices paid data.
o For the labor categorization initiative we will be working
the needs of both communities are considered.
closely with industry and our federal partners to ensure
o For collecting prices paid data, several years ago we
began this work at the Schedules level. For 6 of the
pricing for r3600 contracts and 38,000 labor categories.
professional services schedules, we have documented
Sharing this information with the federal acquisition
community can be a first step in providing a level of
transparency to the Schedules pricing environment.
level pricing for our OASIS offering and selected12
o As a second step we will begin to collect task order
Schedule programs in partnership with our federal
agency partners.
engagement activities to support the category and
 Lastly, we will be establishing formal stakeholder
development of these initiatives. Our initial will be on
industry engagement and participation.
associations that there will be routine quarterly
o For example, this year, we have committed to industry
meetings where we can discuss the progress of various
initiatives.
will provide the acquisition and industry community with
o We will be establishing an environment in Interact that
information about our work and initiatives…as well as
provide a way for us to have real time dialogue about
them.13
o We will also begin to host bi-annual virtual industry
days as well as small focus groups for our Schedule
contractors. We believe these types of forums will
better serve the various needs of our industry partners.
The next few years are certainly going to be challenging, but
a challenge worth taking. I look forward hearing your
feedback about our work and look forward to working
through these initiatives together
Other initiatives are underway. As they are developed, briefings will be provided to industry and feedback sought