“When Wal-Mart buys, I guarantee they get the best price, and when Honeywell buys, they get the best price,” said ranking member Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

“When Wal-Mart buys, I guarantee they get the best price, and when Honeywell buys, they get the best price,” said ranking member Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Flickr user talkradionews

Government Should Leverage Its Size to Get Better Prices, Senators Say

OMB, GSA told to measure strategic sourcing progress.

The seven-year-old effort by agency buyers to achieve private-sector levels of strategic sourcing has shown only modest progress, a Senate panel was told on Monday, due to managers’ fears of losing control of budgets, a lack of incentives and vague performance metrics.

The push to increase efficiency by bulk buying office products, printing and increasingly sophisticated services has brought only a 5 percent participation rate in contracts governmentwide, compared with as much as 90 percent at such companies as Pfizer, Delphi and Dell, according to witnesses at a hearing by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“When Wal-Mart buys, I guarantee they get the best price, and when Honeywell buys, they get the best price,” said ranking member Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Coburn said he’d personally persuaded large contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Electric to give discounts on major Defense Department contracts, “simply because no one at the Pentagon had asked.”

Chairman Tom Carper, D-Del., called the Obama administration’s key procurement officers to respond to Government Accountability Office reports showing that the top four purchasing departments -- Defense, Energy, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs -- were achieving only 5 percent of contracts using strategic sourcing’s careful analysis of spending needs and markets and rigorous monitoring of vendor prices. “Federal agencies appear to behave more like medium-sized, unrelated businesses than the largest purchaser in the world -- which is what the U.S. government is,” Carper said.

He placed strategic sourcing’s potential savings -- up to $80 billion annually-- in the context of President Obama’s recent announcement of a new management initiative led by Budget Director Sylvia Burwell, who came from the Wal-Mart Foundation.

A defense of progress to date came from Joe Jordan, administrator of the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy, who said OMB’s interagency Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council, convened last December, has “challenged agencies to save billions through structural contracting practices” such as continuous price monitoring and usage data, so that “program managers can focus on more mission-critical contracts.”

The obstacles include “a decentralized process with a lack of visibility into what other agencies do,” Jordan said. But he cited progress in reducing what once was 4,000 separate wireless phone agreements with 800 plans to one contract vehicle, the saving of $600 million through shared contracts for janitorial services, and the General Services Administration’s office supplies contracts that have upped the rate of small business participation from 67 percent to 76 percent.

“As we move forward, I am confident the savings will ramp up over time,” Jordan said, citing a goal of $100 billion as the “addressable spend.”

Dan Tangherlini, newly confirmed as administrator of GSA, said strategic sourcing in 20 agencies has saved $300 million since 2010. He said his agency is preparing 10 new strategic sourcing contracts to that could save “hundreds of millions” by showing agencies data on the savings many are “leaving on the table” by not using for example, the GSA schedules, which are “50 percent faster” in such areas as domestic shipping, office supplies and print management.

“Contractors are required to report transactional data on all program sales,” he said. “For the first time, this level of financial information collection provides us with a clear picture of agency spending behavior. Over the last several months, GSA has used this data to show contractors their pricing item by item, compared with their competitors in an anonymous fashion. This has empowered contractors to understand their competitive position, and in many cases offer better deals.”

A less hopeful characterization came from Christina Champlain, GAO’s director of acquisition and sourcing management, who testified that the program -- when compared with her studies and visits with private companies -- “had only managed a small amount of spending through its four governmentwide strategic sourcing initiatives in fiscal year 2011, although it reported achieving significant savings on those efforts. Further, we found that most selected agencies' efforts did not address their highest spending areas, such as services, which may provide opportunities for significant savings.”

The department making the most progress, Champlain said, was Homeland Security.

Resistance, she added, comes from “negative incentives”—managers don’t want their budgets cut, and fear losing control over spending. What is needed is more leadership and greater congressional oversight, she said, to keep the pressure on agencies to exploit opportunities.

Coburn charged that OMB has insufficient guidance and performance metrics. “An absence of guidelines means you don’t know if the data are right—it’s one of the problems with government,” he said.

Jordan responded that the methodologies being developed by specialty teams on the interagency council are complex because “the drivers of costs differ from the drivers of savings.” While agencies do need to be challenged to better gauge savings, “we have addressed a number of those issues,” he said, noting that GAO recently removed interagency contracting from its high-risk list.

NEXT STORY: 7 Ways to Better Manage a Slacker

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.