Consolidation of Schedules: GSA’s New Vision – Sabre88

The General Service Administration operates 24 Multiple Award Schedules with schedules being organized under industry or type of service. However, GSA has recently announced that it will change the current schedule and consolidate all 24 MAS to one schedule. This announcement will affect all contractors with this type of schedule contract. In addition, it will alter the process by which contractors apply for and government stakeholders buy from GSA schedules. Currently, GSA uses MAS for more than 10 million products that appear on GSA schedules. Reports indicate that an estimated $31 billion is spent each year through MAS contracts. The current system requires vendors to comply with different terms and conditions depending on the products or services they offer. This leads to a confusing and complicated system that frustrates the vendors. The new system that GSA is proposing would streamline the current process and allow vendors to consolidate their purchases to one schedule. GSA has not yet issued a timeline for the consolidation but they say that the consolidation should be anticipated to occur within two years. A GSA representative in a press call explained that the process will be down in two phases. The first phase will be completed in the fiscal year 2019 and existing contractors will continue to sell through their existing contracts while new contracts will be established on the new schedule. In the second phase, GSA will move existing contractors on the new consolidated schedule. This is not a new concept since the idea has been in the works as mentioned in June 2018 at Industry Day. At the moment GSA has not addressed what sort of impact consolidation would have on vendors with multiple contract schedules but what is clear is that this reform to GSA’s current system seeks to lessen GSA’s perception as excessively complicated. Whether this consolidation would be effective remains to be seen. More details would emerge during GSA’s Federal Marketplace Initiative Industry day on December 12 2018.