Acquisition Policy & IT Category

The ITVMO as part of the larger Federal Category Management Framework, works in tandem with the Governmentwide IT Category Program to drive down federal IT costs through compliance, spend under management, and cost avoidance.

IT Category Management Policy

IT Category Management

Overview

The IT Category is one of ten categories in the Federal Governmentwide Category Management Framework. The government implemented category management to think more like an enterprise to buy smarter and more efficiently as a government.

Category Management is the practice of buying common goods and services that everyone already buys, but buying them smarter. Examples of these goods and services include office supplies, travel and lodging, information technology, and more.

The practical reason for category management is that because the government buys so much of these, it should buy like an enterprise, rather than independently operating agencies and components. Doing so is a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

For more on the federal framework, visit the Acquisition Gateway.

IT Category Management

Primarily the Governmentwide IT Category Management Program works in tandem with the governmentwide ITVMO to drive change in federal procurements and strengthen our vendor relationship management practices.

We are striving to advance category management principles at the market, agency, and vehicle level, breakdown barriers for small business and small disadvantaged businesses, as well as improving our use of made in america vendors, and we are also strengthening our supply chain by mitigating vendor concentration risks and increasing knowledge on top OEMs, buying trends, and emerging technologies to inform agency acquisition strategies.

Focusing initiatives to enable aid and support in federal and marketplace compliance by:

Racial Equity -- boosting small business participation in the marketplace to improve market equity and diversity of suppliers, products, and services.
Buy American -- increasing use of American-made products through stronger vendor relations and market confidence reporting and analysis.
Supply Chain -- establishing standards across IT vehicles as well as increased agency awareness to reduce risks of vendor concentration, cybersecurity attacks, and other vulnerabilities.
Climate Crisis -- analyzing IT spend and consumption costs to focus on sustainability.
Cybersecurity -- translating cyber policies into acquisition best practices and strategies to eliminate use of products or vendors more susceptible to bad actors.

Brokering federal IT acquisition intelligence and resources by:

Category Management Principles -- leveraging established best practices to ensure agencies are acquiring IT equitably, efficiently, and securely.
Vendor Management Principles -- building strong relations with original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and small businesses to help maximize the likelihood that agencies are getting a good deal for the taxpayer by avoiding unnecessary costs and ensuring compliant solutions.

Category-wide Performance (Key Performance Indicators)

The core key performance indicators (KPI) are spend under management (SUM), cost avoidance, and small business utilization (SBU).

The IT Category sets annual targets and tracks monthly on how we are doing against that target. One of the primary goals of category management is to increase spend under management or “SUM” by decreasing use of Tier 0 solutions (or as we commonly call these types of solutions, Open Market).

Read more about measuring and evaluating your SUM and SBU KPIs on the Acquisition Gateway.

Federal targets as well as historical and year to date performance against Category Management KPI measures can be found on the Executive Summary Dashboard (ESD). There are views for governmentwide, category-specific, and department performance in the ESD.

Additionally, the ITVMO’s domain experts, analysts, and category program team are available to help. Annually, the program seeks out to meet with agencies. Interested in being one of those agencies? Contact us today at ITVMO@gsa.gov.

Governmentwide Cost Avoidance Methodology

There are many variations used to calculate Cost Avoidance amounts for services, which creates an inconsistent approach across contract vehicles. A standard methodology was created and maintained by the Governmentwide IT Category Program so that the federal IT Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) can be evaluated objectively and with confidence.

The Governmentwide Cost Avoidance Methodology provides an approach that uses the mid-point as identified as Previous Prices Paid by Functional Grouping. This method uses last fiscal year pricing data as a basis of comparison against current pricing instead of using published rates (Master Contract Ceiling) compared against current pricing, as in prior practices. The methodology also uses the concept of categorizing the costs by functional groups as defined by the newly updated Product Service Codes (PSCs), which were derived from the IT Financial Management industry best practice framework Technology Business Management (TBM).

The combination of using the immediate previous price paid for similar services and grouping costs by category provides several benefits such as:

Realistic and conservative estimates - baseline measures are recent and consistent with best practices.
Scalability - the methodology may be used by unpriced contracts.
Standardization - results and data may be used for comparison across contracts and industry benchmarks.

The Governmentwide IT Category Program maintains the model and associated tools for running. The team is available for analysis of your vehicle solution. Contact us at ITVMO@gsa.gov.

On this Tab

Overview IT Category Management Category-wide Performance Governmentwide Cost Avoidance Methodology

Policy

Overview

Governmentwide IT policy provides the rules, regulations, and guidelines that govern the use, management, and acquisition of IT within the federal government. The goal is to ensure that IT resources are used efficiently, securely, and in a manner that best serves the public interest.

Executive orders (EO) play a crucial role in shaping these policies, as they are directives issued by the President of the United States to manage operations within the federal government. Over the years, various EOs have been issued to improve cybersecurity, promote transparency, enhance digital service delivery, strengthen market equity, and more. These orders influence how federal agencies invest in, adopt, and leverage IT to fulfill their missions and serve the American public.

The Governmentwide IT Category Program in collaboration with the ITVMO and its partners helps translate the Administration Priorities and respective Executive Orders as it pertains to IT and acquisitions. The following are some relevant policies and linked resources.

Please email us at ITVMO@gsa.gov for additional guidance and help meeting your IT acquisition goals in compliance with the following policies.

Goal 1.1: Create a diverse and resilient Federal marketplace.

Goal 1.2: Ensure interoperability and sharing of acquisition data and tools.

Goal1.3: Build our best by developing an inspired, engaged acquisition workforce.

Purpose

E.O. 13985 Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government:

Our Nation deserves an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the opportunities and challenges that we face. The Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.

Goals

Provide a whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of opportunities and challenges.
Develop a systematic approach to embedding fairness in decision-making processes by readdressing inequities in current policies and programs that serve as barriers to equal opportunities
Create opportunities for the improvement of communities that have been historically underserved.

Responsible Office:

Additional Contacts:

Responsible Office:

M-23-11 Creating a More Diverse and Resilient Federal Marketplace
- Issued guidance directing agencies to use a common definition for “new entrant” as they take steps to find small disadvantaged businesses and other contractors and measure progress in diversifying the federal supplier base.
- GSA’s Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvements created a Supplier Base Dashboard for managers to track the size of the supplier base and the mix of new entrants, recent entrants, and established vendors in the supplier base using definitions from memorandum.
M-22-03 Advancing Equity in Procurement
- Sets a goal of increasing the percentage of federal contracts awarded to small disadvantaged businesses (SDBs) to 15% by 2025. Agencies are instructed to negotiate higher SDB contracting goals for 2022 to help meet this target.
- Category management practices, which help agencies buy common goods and services more efficiently, will be updated to provide more opportunities for SDBs and other small businesses. This includes automatic credit for socioeconomic small business awards and ensuring small business goals take priority over "Best in Class" contracts.
M-21-17 Revocation of Executive Order 13950, M-20-37, and M-20-34
- Executive Order 13950, which restricted diversity and inclusion training for federal employees and contractors, has been revoked. Agencies must cease implementing policies tied to the now-rescinded order.
- Agencies should remove any EO 13950-related contractual provisions, notify contractors these clauses will not be enforced, and take steps to eliminate related grant conditions. Enforcement activities stemming from EO 13950, such as investigations or debarment, must cease.

Purpose

E.O. 14005

Ensuring the Future is Made in All of America by All of America’s Workforce: The United States Government should, whenever possible, procure goods, products, materials, and services from sources that will help American businesses compete in strategic industries and help America's workers thrive.

Goals

Help American businesses compete in strategic industries and ensure America’s workers thrive.
Maximize the government’s use of goods, products, and materials produced in, and services offered in, the U.S.
Strengthen applicable Made in America provisions in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).

Responsible Office:

Made in America Office (MIAO)

Oversees and administers domestic preference requirements in federal procurements. The website provides a centralized database of proposed waivers.

Additional Contacts:

Responsible Office:

Purpose

E.O. 14008

Climate Crisis: Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad: The US and the world face a profound climate crisis. We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents. Domestic action must go hand in hand with United States international leadership, aimed at significantly enhancing global action. Together, we must listen to science and meet the moment.

Goals

Use Federal procurement to support robust climate action including a carbon pollution-free electricity sector, no later than 2035 and clean and zero-emission vehicles for Federal, State, local, and Tribal government fleets.
Drive the assessment, disclosure and mitigation of climate pollution and climate-related risks in every sector of our economy.
Promote the flow of capital towards climate-aligned investments and away from high-carbon investments.

Responsible Office:

Climate Policy Office

implements the President’s domestic climate agenda, coordinating the all-of-government approach to tackle the climate crisis, create good-paying, union jobs, and advance environmental justice.

Additional Contacts:

National Climate Task Force

Mobilizing every agency to prioritize acting on climate change throughout the entire federal government.
Office of Global Change
Responsible for implementing and managing U.S. international policy on climate change, and representing the United States in negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , and in many other international fora focused on climate change, including the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization.
Council on Environmental Quality

Coordinates the federal government’s efforts to improve, preserve, and protect America’s public health and environment and assists the FAR in developing regulatory amendments to promote increased contractor attention on reduced carbon emission.

Related Memoranda/Guidance:

Purpose

E.O. 14017

America’s Supply Chain: Resilient American supply chains will revitalize and rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity, maintain America's competitive edge in research and development, and create well-paying jobs. It is the policy of the Administration to strengthen the resilience of America's supply chains.

Goals

Mitigate risks of limitations of critical manufacturing capacity and the availability and integrity of critical goods, products, and services through a more resilient, diverse, and secure supply chain.
Support small businesses, promote prosperity, advance the fight against climate change, and encourage economic growth in communities of color and economically distressed areas.
Facilitate a greater domestic production, a range of supply, built-in redundancies, adequate stockpiles, safe and secure digital networks, and a world-class American manufacturing base and workforce.

Responsible Office:

Additional Contacts:

National Counterintelligence and Security Center

Partners to assess and mitigate the activities of foreign intelligence entities and other adversaries who attempt to compromise the supply chains of our government and industry.
Information Technology Information Council

Promote public policies and industry standards that advance competition and innovation worldwide.
Food and Drug Administration
Oversees the nation’s medical products and actively monitors the status of medical products that are in shortage or appear likely to go into shortage (AskMCMi@fda.hhs.gov).

Purpose

E.O. 14028

Ensuring the Future is Made in All of America by All of America’s Workforce: The Federal Government must improve its efforts to identify, deter, protect against, detect, and respond to the increasingly sophisticated malicious campaigns that threaten the public and private sector, and ultimately the American people’s security and privacy.

Goals

Improve government efforts to identify, deter, protect against, detect, and respond to cyber campaigns and threats; in addition, apply lessons learned from cyber incidents.
Adapt to the continuously changing threat environment to ensure federal marketplace products are built and operate securely.
Foster a more secure cyberspace.

Responsible Office:

General Services Administration (GSA)
Through the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP ).
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA ).
Department of Commerce
Through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST ).
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)

Many of these responsibilities involve coordination among the above named agencies to develop standards and guidance that will serve as the basis for updating cybersecurity policies and procedures at the individual agency level. Consult the executive order and the related guidance to understand the full scope of responsibilities.

Related Memoranda/Guidance:

On this Tab

Overview Presidential Management Agenda Priority 3 E.O. 13985 E.O. 14005 E.O. 14008 E.O. 14017 E.O. 14028