The General Services Administration has asked leaders of McKinsey, BCG and four other consulting firms to justify their federal contracts and suggest ways to save costs, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
“Our objective is to critically evaluate which engagements deliver genuine value,” Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, wrote in a letter sent to firms Thursday. “In keeping with this Administration’s laser focus on fiscal responsibility, our baseline presumption is that most, if not all, of these contracted services are not core to agency missions.”
Discover new contract opportunities at Potomac Officers Club’s monthly GovCon networking events! The 2025 Air and Space Summit on July 31 will host an all-industry Golden Dome panel where representatives from RTX, L3Harris, Booz Allen and more will talk about how to position yourself for success with the multi-billion-dollar initiative.
According to people familiar with the initiative, GSA also sent letters to EY, Alvarez & Marsal, AlixPartners and FTI Consulting.
In the letter, Greenbaum, a 2025 Wash100 awardee, asked the consulting firms to explain their projects’ pricing structure and discuss their existing federal contracts in plain language. Responses to GSA’s request are due July 11.
GSA also requested that the firms transition to outcomes-based contracts, in which vendors are paid based on meeting certain results.
GSA Review of Consulting Contracts
GSA is overseeing an administration-wide review of spending on consultants and other contractors to determine which tasks can be carried out by federal personnel and which can be done by external consultants.
In his letter, Greenbaum wrote that the agency’s review of consulting contracts has led to $23.3 billion in savings in multiyear awards.
Related Articles
Gregory Barbaccia, federal chief information officer and a 2025 Wash100 awardee, has shared his insights on how the federal government should advance digital transformation. “I notice a lot of the government considers itself to be ‘digital,’ but in reality, we’ve only digitized, not transformed. Sure we went 0-1, but that should have just been the beginning,” Barbaccia wrote in a LinkedIn post. He noted the lack of automation and that workflows remain unchanged despite the replacement of paper ledgers with spreadsheets. “Files are shared over email instead of through real-time collaboration tools,” he added. Advancing Digital Transformation in Federal Government
The Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules that seek to eliminate unnecessary paperwork and address regulatory barriers to the ground-station-as-a-service, or GSaaS, business model as part of efforts to drive innovation in the U.S. space economy. FCC said Thursday the new rules establish a process for ground station operators to secure a baseline license without first identifying a satellite point of communication. A simple FCC notification will be required for each new point of communication. According to FCC, the change would eliminate nearly half of earth station modification applications. “Making the smallest change to a satellite system or earth
The General Services Administration has announced a OneGov agreement with Amazon Web Services that will provide up to $1 billion in direct incentive credits to federal civilian agencies. According to GSA, the direct incentive credits, aggregated across the agencies, will include savings on core AWS cloud services through AWS credits, infrastructure and application technologies modernization through AWS modernization credits, access to AWS training and certification through training credits and a streamlined engagement model with greater savings for direct contracts through direct partnerships. Advancing America’s AI Leadership The agreement is expected to accelerate large-scale IT transformation and boost AI innovation across