Most experts agree that the government purchasing process is cumbersome and inefficient; hundreds of purchasing offices work independently with little or no coordination. The term “purchasing” is used throughout to refer to what is more commonly referred to as “acquisition” within the federal government.

FAS Commissioner Steve Kempf on the value of a centralized provider as GSA: Challenges facing GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service

In the past few blogs we’ve thrown a lot at you. Ultimately, we want to show you how these principles can be applied to government agencies. And, based on current government organization successes, and our own internal experience, we believe that these concepts can help government agencies get the most bang out of the taxpayer’s buck. So, how exactly can these concepts help government agencies?

Once you’ve made all these changes to your procurement organization and processes, you want them to last, right? The last principle of IBM’s Smarter Spending approach, “Control”, helps organizations sustain the value found in "Visibility" and secured by the "Leverage" techniques.

In our last post, we discussed the role of visibility and how it can help organizations identify and prioritize procurement transformation efforts.

What do we mean by “visibility?” Simply put, we have to first step back and take a look at the big picture to see, understand, and determine what’s actually going on. In short, we need to gain visibility and insight, which we can then use to develop action plans.

Procurement reform is nothing new.  Remember when Vice President Al Gore smashed that ashtray on television as he was launching the Reinventing Government campaign?  That was 1993.  Plenty of good things have occurred in the world of Federal procurement reform in the years since.  Yet we still struggle with the same challenge: making sure that the government and more importantly the taxpayers get the maximum bang for their buck.

Cloud computing, social networks, identity … the promise of new technologies to help Federal agencies reach their goals is stronger than ever.  At the same time, agencies and contractors who want innovation to bring change are often stymied by lengthy, complex government processes, including those for hiring or training good IT Program Managers, requesting funds though the Federal Budget (a 2-year cycle), and doing an acquisition once the funds are awarded.  Add to this an environment where government and industry see more reasons not to talk to reach other about risks and rewards

In its first year, the Obama contracting and procurement reform agenda has been heavy on executive orders and memos to “rein in” contractors.  These were largely in response to campaign commitments and led to a flurry of activity in agencies.