Some industry experts have expressed their views on the Transactional Data Reporting pilot program after the General Services Administration reported steady progress with TDR, Federal News Network reported Monday.
In late April, Jeff Koses, senior procurement executive at GSA’s office of government-wide policy, wrote in a blog post that the TDR pilot exceeded targets in three of nine evaluation metrics for fiscal year 2020: contract-level pricing, small business performance and data completeness.
Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners, said TDR has developed into a “viable option” for many business entities.
“I will admit to having been a skeptic, but I think that, so long as a company keeps good records on what they provide to their GSA contracting officer, TDR can be a good way for some companies to obtain a schedule contract that otherwise might not be able to,” Allen said in an email to FNN. “GSA may have even been a little ahead of the curve here in terms of TDR attracting non-traditional contractors, something that is very sought after now in Defense Department and even civilian agencies.”
Alan Thomas, chief operating officer at IntelliBridge, said the agency should come up with a strategy for working with the GSA inspector general once it decides to transition the TDR pilot to full implementation phase.
“The claims in the blog post are great but will be even more compelling with accompanying data,” he said in an email. “Stepping back from the pilot and thinking about full implementation, GSA is going to need a strategy for working with the inspector general on TDR. The IG has a lot invested in the current price reduction clause regime and won’t move away easily from it.”
Thomas, former commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, noted that GSA should provide contracting officers access to TDR data to help facilitate the decision-making process by using pricing information with process automation software and analytic tools.
