A major overhaul is being made by the General Services Administration to its procurement protocol. The change has been under consideration for much of this year, but it is now certain to be implemented. The gist of the change, known as the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) is to radically reduce the number of primary contractors across several categories of supply. In the case of janitorial and sanitation supplies, for example, it will reduce the number of suppliers from approximately 1,000 to 21, of whom only 6 will supply cleaning compounds.
The Blanket Purchase Agreement protocol for merely studying the application is nearly 100 pages long as the core document, not including many ancillary documents. It is so burdensome that it effectively precludes most businesses from qualifying. There has been an outpouring of protest from the ISSA, the world’s largest cleaning industry association, based in Illinois. The following is a link that describes the ISSA’s position on the subject and is a very helpful backgrounder: http://www.fmlink.com/article.cgi?type=News&archive=false&title=ISSA%20protests%20impact%20of%20GSA%20federal%20strategic%20sourcing%20initiative%20on%20jansan%20industry&mode=source&catid=4&display=article&id=45091
The impact on Winning Brands of this policy shift will not be as great as on suppliers who already have more at stake, especially those who only supply “standard” jan/san products. They will see their existing supply contracts ended in most cases, resulting in a loss of existing income. Since Winning Brands had not yet established its supply lines to client agencies, there will be negligible impact on our present business. Instead, we will need to change our approach going forward. Rather than dealing directly with the GSA through a contract under our own legal administration, with all that this entails, we will identify patners who, once approved, can add qualified specialty products because they are BPA suppliers to the agency. Interestingly, we have already been approached by one such condending BPA consolidator. This outreach to us by a major contending BPA supplier confirmed to Winning Brands that the GSA policy change does not spell the end of possibilities for Winning Brands’ future government supply, but rather a change of method. Other suppliers who have only typical or ordinary products and who rely on high volume, low margin, generic supply products are not as fortunate. As the ISSA makes clear in its representation link above, the GSA policy change will hit those companies hard.
This GSA policy change will give Winning Brands greater freedom to identify niches which can be served through the new distributors without Winning Brands itself needing to maintain an administratively complicated reporting protocol that carried contractual limitations of what pricing we could charge other customers, minimum fees, minimum annual dollar turnover, separate EDI, inspection of facilities to comply with a variety of code issues, etc. Those administrative functions will now be performed by the “consolidators” – holders of the new Blanket Purchase Agreements. Since Winning Brands cannot have it “both ways”, i.e. trying to be a consolidator while also trying to be a supplier to consolidators, Winning Brands has voted with its feet and provided its GSA Contract Resignation on good terms rather than try to be one of the consolidators.
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In replying to our resignation, The GSA, officially affirmed its positive relationship with us through this kind thought “…Thank you for your reply and the best of success in your company’s continued efforts in both the commercial and Governmental marketplace…” The last three words are significant.
Winning Brands is grateful for its continued good standing with its customer organizations, even when circumstances require changing methods. That’s life. Adaptability is a key survival skill for organizations.
