White House Looks for Input on Improving Contracting
During a White House event Monday, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requested ideas from across the federal community on ways to improve acquisition and supply chain management. The summit focused on various initiatives to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of contract management. The “call for ideas” is meant to continue these conversations and pose additional questions on ways to improve the system.
The White House Summit on Federal Acquisition and Supply Chain Management brought industry professionals and OMB officials together to discuss reforms to the government’s procurement process. According to an OMB release, the conversation focused on end-to-end supply chain management, co-creation with industry/academia/consortia, and continuous improvement cycles.
The discussion ended with a formal “call for ideas” in which private sector organizations, researchers, academic institutions, good government groups, the public, and others can submit comments on “the vision and concept for a mechanism to facilitate curated conversations between the federal government and external supply chain and acquisition experts” as the government works to modernize its $575 billion supply chain and acquisition functions.
Specifically, OMB requested mechanisms to answer questions like:
(Benchmarking) How long does it take a comparably-sized organization to develop and deploy a unique technology (or specialized service) so the government can better evaluate its agility and responsiveness?
(Data/Pricing Sourcing) What external data sources are readily available for real-time access to market trends and pricing data for specific common categories/sectors of spend?
(Market Research) What is the future of XYZ industry and how should the government prepare for those market changes?
(Technology) What are the most impactful types of process changes and automation to reduce transaction costs?
(Continuous Improvement) What are the top 5 inputs that large organizations use to assess their performance, who has access to that data, and how do these organizations prioritize change management to become more agile?
(Human Capital Strategies) There are dozens of private sector credentialing bodies for supply chain management. What is the comprehensive training path for public sector category management professionals across various career paths (i.e. requirement owners, contracting officers, agency leaders) for total lifecycle cost management – including, but not limited to, enterprise buying, implementation of demand and vendor management.
Individuals and groups can submit ideas by emailing ideas@omb.eop.gov by 5pm EDT on February 17, 2020 with the subject line: “Supply Chain Ideas.”