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CBP and Procurement Innovation Lab Issue RFP for IT Contract

May 22, 2017
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a request for proposal (RFP), seeking a vendor to “take charge of its overall IT infrastructure, to create a modernization strategy and oversee the transition to a cloud-based computing environment,” according to FCW. The awardee, which is set...

CGP: A Word of Caution about Defense Acquisition Reforms

May 22, 2017
The Coalition for Government Procurement has released a statement in response to Rep. Mac Thornberry’s defense acquisition reform proposals, which largely focused on improving the Department of Defense’s purchase of commercial items. The Coalition applauded the House’s attention to the issue,...

SBA Announces Federal Agencies Hit Small Business Contracting Goal

May 19, 2017
The Small Business Administration announced today that the federal government reached its small business contracting goal for the fourth consecutive year, awarding 24.34% of federal contracting dollars to small businesses, eclipsing the 23% goal, but dropping from 25.75% last year. The government...

Defense Acquisition Reform Bill Wants to Create a Marketplace Like Amazon

May 19, 2017
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) has released his defense acquisition reform bill, which will be folded into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) later this year. The bill focuses on improving the Department of Defense’s purchasing of commercial items. According to Federal News Radio, “The...

Malusi Gigaba Announces Need to Reform Procurement in South Africa

May 19, 2017
On Monday May, 15, the Finance Minister of South Africa Malusi Gigaba announced, in a speech to the Black Business Council, that the country’s National Treasury would use its 500 billion rand ($40 billion) annual procurement budget to spur economic development and pursue certain larger, social...

Illinois Officials at Odds over Massive Procurement

May 18, 2017
Illinois Comptroller Susan Mendoza has published a column in the State Journal-Register about concerns she has over proposed changes to the Department of Healthcare and Family Services’s Medicaid Managed Care Organization (MCO) system. Mendoza writes: “With a cost of between $35 billion and $40...

Report: Services Contracting Dominated by Re-Competes

May 18, 2017
Research and analysis firm Nation Analytics has published a new “Government Services Competitive Intelligence Report,” finding that most major services contracts—defined as valued at $50 million or more—are re-competes, and aren’t seeking leading-edge solutions. In fiscal 2016, for...

Pentagon to Submit to First-Ever Audit

May 18, 2017
According to GovExec, the Department of Defense is “gearing up” for its first audit.” That the nation’s most sprawling and expensive bureaucracy—and the world’s largest employer—has yet to undergo a formal, legally mandated review of its finances is a source of embarrassment among...

DoD Needs to Clean Up Performance Reviews

May 18, 2017
Claire M. Grady, the director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP), has issued a memo to defense acquisition officials to “re-emphasize” the importance of submitting complete, timely written narratives into the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS). The memo...

Acquisition Reform Panel Presents Initial Findings to Congress

May 18, 2017
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Section 809 panel, created to solicit expert insight into how DoD could streamline its acquisition, has presented an initial report to Congress. According to a story inFederal News Radio, the recommendations are “mostly small, but actionable items.” The...

Procurement Key to Brexit’s Success

May 18, 2017
In an interesting story about the importance of procurement, Diginomica looks at a report from the analyst group GUIDE Consultancy, which claims that the success of Britain’s departure from the European Union—known as Brexit—will depend upon the country’s digital procurement capabilities....