IRS procurement office undergoes overhaul to improve efficiency
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By
Nick Wakeman
The agency's assistant chief procurement officer explains how its new alignment and "tiger teams" aim to address inconsistency and enhance customer service.
The Internal Revenue Service’s acquisition operation faces several challenges, including the need for better requirement development and consistency in its communications.
“I can say with confidence that we are making strides to continuously improve our service and to be better partners with our internal and external customers, including industry,” Guy Torres, the IRS' assistant chief procurement officer, said July 12 at our Doing Business With Treasury event.
As we have previously highlighted, the IRS has received an influx of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act that has given the agency some resources to modernize how it does business.
Two chronic complaints Torres’ office hears is inconsistent guidance from procurement personnel and the need for more support with requiremenst writing.
On the guidance front, Torres joked that three contracting officers will provide three different answers to the same question.
“That’s not good. Consistency and credibility gets at risk,” he said.
To address these concerns, the IRS created an acquisition procurement management office.
One upcoming change is that procurement personnel will align to customer offices rather than types of procurements. The new alignment starts in October.
That is a best practice Torres saw work when he was at the Homeland Security Department.
“The benefit of this new alignment will be increased customer service, increased contracting officer engagement with the customer, and increased procurement bench strength,” he said.
A second initiative of the APMO is the creation of tiger teams to help its government customers with market research, technical requirements, and acquisition strategy development.
“So far, we have five tiger teams working across 20 agency priority requirements,” Torres said.
Torres called the creation of the APMO as a “large-scale organizational transformation that will rebrand procurement within the IRS."
The goal is for procurement to not be seen as a roadblock, but rather as partners and business advisers who are forward leaning.
“It is an exciting time for procurement and I’m eager to witness the benefits of this journey,” Torres said.