OFPP's Jordan pushes strategic sourcing

Joe Jordan, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, is pushing a three-pronged strategy to improve how the government buys goods and services, including strategic sourcing, better analytics and improving the workforce.

He laid out his top priorities at a strategic sourcing event Thursday sponsored by the Professional Services Council, the Coalition for Government Procurement, TechAmerica, and ACT/IAC.

Calling them “buckets,” Jordan listed these three priorities:

• Buying smarter
• Building the right supplier relationships
• Developing the acquisition workforce

In the first bucket, buying smarter, Jordan said that the government needs to escalate the use of analytics in acquisition.

Also, this bucket is where strategic sourcing fits into the picture: for far too long, the government has been buying as if it were a couple hundred different businesses, instead of using its buying power to its advantage, Jordan said.

In his discussion of his second bucket, Jordan gave an anecdote of booking a vacation for his family; based on the ratings of the travel vendors, he was able to figure out the best vendor to use for his trip, and it happened without a hitch.

The government should be more like this. It needs good past-performance evaluations, just like a typical travel service has, he said.

Finally, what is most important to his third bucket—developing the acquisition workforce—is actually defining what an acquisition workforce is, and what it means.