GSA shares good news via new dashboard

The General Services Administration announced a new dashboard April 23 to show the benefits to agencies, small businesses and taxpayers when it strategically sources office supplies.

In a new blog post, GSA said the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative Second Generation Office Supplies (OS2) blanket purchase agreement has saved more than $364 million from fiscal 2010 to February 2014.

GSA wrote that 76 percent of OS2 sales have gone to small businesses as of February. Service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses received 26 percent of sales so far in fiscal 2014.

Furthermore, the OS2 BPAs are beating the GSA Schedule 75 contract prices. GSA said OS2 increased competitive pressures in the federal office supplies market, which has reduced actual transaction prices by 14 percent, based on an independent third-party estimate.

With the new dashboard, GSA is offering more details on these statistics. The new Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative Second Generation Office Supplies Savings and Small Business Dashboard displays details on pricing and sales. The dashboard includes graphics about OS2 and also provides filters for usage data by government agency, small or large business sales, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses specifics, and even geographical sales information.

GSA said it wants to be more transparent and also validate its support for small businesses and veterans in business.

The transparency dashboard comes three months after GSA released a request for proposals for the third generation of the office supply contract, or OS3.

GSA expects lower prices and decreased administration costs with OS3, due to more competition, reduced price variability, a streamlined acquisition process, and simplified contractual terms. More specifically, officials expect OS3 to save more than $65 million a year in administrative costs along with the $90 million in annual savings that OS2 captured.

“With increasingly constrained resources and budgets, GSA’s mission of saving the government time and money has never been more important,” Tom Sharpe, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service administrator, said in January.