The General Services Administration is relaunching an online platform that aims to improve collaboration and communication between government and industry during the acquisition process.A posting on CIO.gov announces a draft statement-of-work order on a governmentwide, interactive online wiki platform that will solicit and store comments during the pre-RFP stage of the IT acquisition process.
The wiki, a relaunch of the agency’s BetterBuy efforts, will be used as a pilot project for the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative Wireless acquisition.
“The federal government benefits greatly when there is broad engagement with industry before an IT project is initiated,†a posting on CIO.gov reads. “Inexpensive yet efficient solutions for this kind of engagement can and should be used by all agencies to tap the understanding and market knowledge of our industry partners, especially in the period prior to issuing a Request for Proposal.â€
The FSSI Wireless acquisition vehicle aims to provide  “centralized government-wide cellular devices and services program that will meet the majority of the federal government’s wireless service needs that are offered by the cellular industry,” according to the wiki.
Improving communication between government and industry has also been a goal of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s Dan Gordon, who has led a campaign of mythbusting on the topic.
