GSA Begins 2021 with Slew of Acquisition Activity

The General Services Administration (GSA) has come out swinging in 2021 in the acquisition arena. Within the first two weeks of the new year, the GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service has issued two Request for Information (RFI) and a draft solicitation for the GWAC POLARIS, a small business IT focused GWAC that will essentially replace the Alliant 2 Small Business vehicle.

The two RFIs released are for artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, and one to develop a new professional services vehicle. “We are looking at fiscal 2021 at being the year where we see some big awards,” said Laura Stanton, FAS’ assistant commissioner for the Office of Information Technology Category, during a recent event sponsored by ACT-IAC. “In fiscal 2020, the IT category facilitated more than $30 billion in annual government spend. We still are wrapping up those year-end numbers, but it represents the trust the federal agencies have put in us, the customer service, the support is reducing the procurement action lead time, innovation and data transparency and all of the things the agencies put their trust in ITC to make that happen. Out of that, we also provided more than $2 billion in savings and cost avoidance for the customers of ITC alone.”

In addition, the GSA is currently reviewing bids for the 8(a) STARS III GWAC as well as the ASTRO program. These are expected to be awarded in the spring of 2021.

FAS has seen formidable growth of late, recording 15% growth rate in 2019, increased spending in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, and now with Polaris, 8(a) STARS III, ASTRO and several other initiatives like the commercial platform, the 2GIT vehicle and OASIS, new vendors are slated to gain momentum in 2021 and GSA will continue to capture more of the market.

Author: Paul McVeigh

Source: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2021/01/gsa-kicks-starts-2021-with-an-acquisition-potpourri/