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An Interview with Donna D. Bennett, Commissioner
GSA Federal Supply Service
The GSA Federal Supply Service
Employees: 3,292
General Supply Fund Revenue: $3.2 billion
Other Funding: $22.1 million (Appropriated—Direct and Reimbursable)
The GSA Federal Supply Service (FSS) oversees and implements the expansive
buying powers of the General Services Administration by helping agencies
reduce their own investments in acquisition and by managing Federal personal
property assets. Products and services worth $19.4 billion in FY2000
were distributed worldwide by FSS, a 14% increase in business over the
previous year.
Commissioner Donna D. Bennett, together with Lester D. Gray, Jr., Deputy
Commissioner, and Gary Feit, Assistant Commissioner for Business Management
and Marketing, detailed some of the challenges, benefits and
performance of the GSA FSS in the following Jan. 2001 interview.
In some instances, comments have been paraphrased. On Sept. 4, 2000,
Ms. Bennett was named Commissioner replacing retired Frank Pugliese.
She had been serving as Deputy Commissioner since July 1994.
Question: How would you describe the vision for GSA’s FSS and
its core values?
Commissioner Bennett: We are in the business to make government
work better and to make sure that taxpayer dollars are used appropriately.
We offer a multitude of options for our customers (government agencies).
We operate on four business principles: (a) to leverage our customer’s
buying power; (b) to offer state of the art solutions; (c) to create solutions
that encompass a wide spectrum of choice; and (d) to make sure we invest
in a world class workforce.
Our purpose is to give our customer’s choice; we are a non-mandatory
source of supplies.
Question: How do government assets get recycled through GSA’s
FSS?
Commissioner Bennett: Reutilization of government assets represents
about $3 billion a year. We transfer excess properties and supplies
to avoid new procurement where possible. First we offer it to federal
agencies, then to state agents who can donate it to nonprofit agencies.
If there is no interest, then we will sell the assets to private citizens.
Computer equipment automatically gets donated to schools because of its
short lifecycle. Agency furniture is one commodity that is often
reutilized.
Question: Explain the significance of the Contract City-Pairs Program
and its success in recent years. I understand that the contract
airline city-pairs program provides federal travelers with discounts 69%
below published unrestricted coach fares, with no advanced booking requirements
or penalties for changes.
Commissioner Bennett: The airline city pairs program is offered
in the Continental United States and throughout the world. Volume
discounts save up to $2 billion a year. All major airlines are participating
at this point. With discounts provided by 14 airlines, the government
saved $2.8 billion altogether. The FY2000 contracts covered 4,337
domestic and 653 international routes.
Question: GSA FSS maintains and manages a multitude of vehicles
for government agencies. How does this work in practice?
Deputy Commissioner Lester Gray: On the vehicle purchasing side,
we consolidate government requirements and supply motor vehicles in volume
where possible. Discounts run from 20 to 27% for roughly 58,000
vehicles each year. These purchases range from sedans to light pickups
to buses and ambulances. We also run a full-service interagency
leasing operation—we manage 177,000 vehicles. This works with
every federal government agency. We take care of maintenance and
fuel and sell vehicles through auctions, as well as buy replacements.
There’s a monthly mileage fee at the agency level.
The cost per mile has remained below the rate of inflation. No appropriations
from Congress are needed.
This program of leasing has equaled $50 million in the last 10 years to
the federal government.
Federal vehicle purchasers now can do a lot of their business online.
In a selection process, they can choose a vehicle type, price a vehicle,
and compare models from Chrysler, Ford, and GM, for example.
Question: Government charge cards have helped organize and track
expenditures under the GSA SmartPay charge card program.
What is the extent of this initiative in GSA’s FSS?
Commissioner Bennett: Charge cards have been very successful for
purchases, for travel or in conjunction with fleet fuel charges.
The cards can function as ATM/debit cards and stored-value cards.
The first travel cards were introduced in 1983. Other purchases
were introduced in 1988. Then, commercial fleet cards in 1997.
There’s also a specialty card approach where an agency can choose
a relationship with one of five banks. GSA did the overall contract
work and each agency has picked their own bank. The agencies have
done this to reduce investments in government financing and seen billions
overall in savings. The five participating banks include:
Bank of America; Citibank; First National Bank of Chicago; Mellon Bank,
and US Bank. Enhancements made recently include options for electronic
reporting and for more sophisticated payment cards….We may not go
to smart cards, except where it is useful to secure locations.
Question: GSA Advantage.gov will look to have 95% of FSS schedules
contracts online by the end of FY 2001. What are the challenges
you face in getting this done? How much growth have you seen in the scheduled
contracts program of GSA?
Commissioner Bennett: We do contracts with more than 8,000 companies.
Any agency can go company to company, but it is easier for them to choose
from those pre-approved. There is always a choice and rules on competing
offers and service are already met from our lists. This program
represents $15 billion dollars and is rapidly growing. From 1998-2000,
there was an 85% growth in these schedule contracts. It’s important
to note that the time is significantly reduced to do a full contract,
as an example from 268 days to 49 days. 77 percent of all contracts
are awarded to small businesses, and the contracts that are awarded are
consistent with simplified government order procedures. Agencies
can do a blanket purchase agreement for large contracts over $100 million.
Small purchases thresholds of $2500 can also be accommodated.
Question: What about service contracts? Are they handled in
a similar fashion?
Assistant Commissioner Feit: Service contracts are part of an increasing
program, especially for human resources, financial management, engineering
services, and training. Agencies come to us and say, “We have
a need; can you create a schedule?” Service contracts are part
of the scheduled contracts program. Our contract team puts together
service contracts needed in a matter of days. They are often more
complex and need more agency involvement.
Question: What is the future of ebusiness in GSA and how well has
GSA Advantage been received?
Commissioner Bennett: Ebusiness is a continuation of past trends.
It’s key for us to evolve and offer state-of-the-art solutions.
This use of the internet is not a black ‘n white change for us. GSA
Advantage has been a great success story for us. It’s been
singled out for awards from both the Smithsonian Awards and Government
Computer News. We are evaluating the hits we are getting and using
it for information for relative price offerings. This spring we
will launch a new version of GSA Advantage. We are working with
Verity, a search engine company, to improve search and offer customized
stores for certain agencies where they can specify items for members to
purchase.
We will move to allowing electronic requests for quotes on buyers.gov.
A requirement will be posted, and the information will be sent to the
vendor. More vendors will be added to GSA Advantage by July 1, 2001.
We have more than 50% on of our 6,000 schedule vendors.
Question: What else would you expect to see in the ebusiness
area?
Commissioner Bennett: We hope to move to more electronic bidding
with a performance-based statement of work. This may include audio/video
information that can be stored. We will start moving toward best
value selections, for pre-screening purposes. On GSA Auctions (auctionrp.com),
which is newly launched as of Jan. 17, 2001, we expect that other parts
of GSA will want to put up their assets. The focus in now on personal
property. It will be a consolidated portal for agency activity.
We’ve seen over 10,000 bidders sign up and we will do more comparative
analysis with upcoming live auctions.
Deputy Commissioner Gray: In the last decade, all our maintenance
programs have been electronic and we have moved them to a web-based system
in the last two years. An agency can report their preventative maintenance,
mileage, and billings electronically. With the charge card program,
maintenance and repair invoices are all done electronically—up to
90 percent now. Three years ago, 9 out of 10 invoices were done
on paper. We are even moving to handheld computers to bring vehicles
into inventory and for other asset management because it is a lot less
work than on paper.
Commissioner Bennett: We should also mention our E-Library, which
now shows a listing of every scheduled contract and contractor.
Most procurement officials use it. They search for marketing and
media services. Contractors covered under those items can pull up
the contract number as a ready reference tool.
Question: How is GSA working with remote personnel? Employment
trends show that more and more workers are based out of their homes or
travel patterns, such as hotels and temporary offices.
Commissioner Bennett: EIRO stands for Econnected Intelligent Remote
Office. This program allows employees away from the traditional
workplace to be fully supported with a package of solutions. We
are working on a number of packaging options for our agency clients, or
an agency can package their own. Trends in the federal sector are
the same.
Question: What do you see as your biggest challenges in FSS going
forward?
Commissioner Bennett: We see three major challenges: 1.
competition; 2. staying on top of ebusiness; and 3. retaining
high quality people. We are seeing significant pressures from other
agencies and the private sector in competition. We believe they
are healthy competitive factors. GSA is only one agency, for example,
that offers government wide contracts in information technology.
Some programs and personnel have been affected, such as a stock program
with major distribution centers. (Background: Within the next
few months, GSA will initiate “reductions-in-force,” a process
more commonly known in the federal government as a “RIF.” The
announcement last year led to arbitration with unions when the facilities
were targeted for closings. It now stands with the Federal Services
Impasse Panel for a ruling expected soon.)
Question: In what new ways will GSA combat competition?
Commissioner Bennett: We are investing in a CRM program with Siebel,
to better anticipate what customers need. In the first six weeks of implementation,
we have a Phase I sales automation tool going in….We are also focused
on professionalizing procurement ranks. We have new education and
training requirements . We will need to hire more people with sophisticated
marketing analysis and more solid IT. |
