GSA Makes Strides In Strategic Sourcing With New Approach to Government Office Supplies Purchasing

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The General Services Administration (GSA) posted the Statement of Work from its draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) aimed at reducing costs for federal office supply purchases. Office Supply Third Generation or OS3 is the agency's latest effort to cut costs and increase efficiencies by buying everyday supplies like pens, paper, and printing items from a list of vendors with negotiated low prices. While this initiative has been around since 2006, today marks the agency's third update of the program, which builds upon the success of OS2, the previous edition, which generated more than $350 million in savings to date, and achieved a small business utilization rate of 76 percent. GSA worked in partnership with federal customer agencies including Small Business Administration (SBA), the Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council (SSLC) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop OS3.

OS3 is expected to provide government savings of $65 million annually on administrative costs and plus an additional $90 million in annual savings captured through lower prices.

The remaining portions of the OS3 draft RFP will be posted in the coming weeks.  GSA's OS3 team will also be hosting a virtual industry engagement day online, open to all interested office supplies vendors, on December 10.  To view the Statement of Work, draft pricing sheet and tutorial videos; and to learn more about the industry engagement event, visit the GSA's OS3 Interact community.  

FAS Commissioner Tom Sharpe Weighs in:

"GSA is committed to working collaboratively with our partners across government and in the office supply community to save money and streamline the purchasing process for federal agencies. With increasingly constrained resources and budgets, saving time and money is essential."

How OS3 Works:

GSA's FSSI programs help federal agencies buy smarter and save money for taxpayers by leveraging the large quantity the government purchases to negotiate lower prices from suppliers.

The OS3 program does this by working with agencies to figure out how much they are spending on common supplies and then working with office supplies vendors to agree on bulk prices that reflect how much the government is buying each year.   

Building on the successes of OS2, OS3 will include the following new and additional benefits:

• This procurement will be a full-and-open solicitation, open to all office supply businesses, including any businesses that do not have a GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract.
• Additional purchasing channel options for agencies with the inclusion of a requisition channel and eventually the 4th Party Logistics (vendor direct-delivery requisition/fulfillment) channel
• Increased opportunities for small businesses with open season on-ramping and an increase in the number of awards reserved for small business
• Lower prices through increased competition and a dynamic pricing model, which reduces price variances

SOURCE U.S. General Services Administration