GSA Blog

Line-item pricing data enhancing market strategies, small business success

The Federal Acquisition Service’s work to capture better data at the line-item level is delivering tangible results.

Data that reflects transactions became available for GSA’s industry partners last year and is already making significant difference to the government and industry:

• Helping small businesses market their products and services
  The program’s data is used to analyze small business participation, competition, and market impact on FAS’s 2nd Generation IT Products Blanket Purchase Agreement (2GIT BPA). The 2GIT BPA team used transactional data to analyze which high-demand items customers were buying and discovered these items were only being provided by large business resellers. Small businesses were not participating because they lacked the required letter of supply from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The team identified the OEMs and worked with them to issue additional letters of supply to small businesses. As a result of these efforts, small business sales exceeded large business sales on that particular item by 22% in the first quarter of this year.
   
• A quicker way to address security issues
  Earlier this year, our Office of Policy and Compliance Supply Chain Risk Management group responded to an emergency directive from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency about an issue impacting some vendors and products on the Multiple Award Schedule. Querying transactional data, our team quickly found vendors selling these products, as well as the part numbers, deliverable descriptions, total sales, and contract numbers for these impacted items. Using this information, they cross-referenced different data sources to determine customers who purchased those products and are in the process of alerting them of the risks. 

• Influencing market strategies
  Sharing demand data powered by the transactional data reporting program gives industry partners a better understanding of the federal market. This has influenced go-to-market strategies, allowing partners to focus on best-selling items rather than putting significant effort into those that aren’t. Demand data is shared publicly every other month through GSA’s Vendor Support Center.

Looking to the future

GSA plans to continue growing datasets and making more buying data available in the coming years. Our ultimate goal is complete transparency when it comes to what the government is buying, and how much it’s paying for goods and services. 

You can find information about how this is being applied across government by reading our recent blog on the Procurement Co-Pilot on Acquisition Gateway. 

Part of GSA’s mission has always been to deliver products and services at the best value for the American people — and with more than $100 billion worth of government spending funneling through GSA contracts, delivering that best value is more important than ever. 

If you are a business with a Multiple Award Schedule contract and you’d like to be part of this program, visit GSA’s Consider TDR web page to learn more.