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Federal Marketplace Strategy Fall 2020 Release

| Crystal Philcox, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Enterprise Strategy Management in GSA's Federal Acquisition Service
Post filed in: Acquisition

As we head further into fall and get acclimated to standard time, I’m pleased to share a few items of note with you – The fall 2020 Federal Marketplace Strategy release and news about the debut of our new podcast, GSA FAS Focus.

Speaking of focus, ours hasn’t changed. I’m pleased to announce our Federal Marketplace (FMP) Strategy Fall 2020 Release. This is our sixth FMP release and it delivers a mix of policy, process, and technology project updates and improvements, including:

  • Our Verified Product Portal (VPP): Coming in November 2020, the VPP lets manufacturers and wholesalers upload standardized product data and images so we have better information across GSA marketplaces. This will make it easier for customers to compare and find the products they want.
  • Our Truman Bot has been upgraded and is more effective than ever. Truman 2.0 automates the creation of internal Price and Pre-negotiation Memorandums and conducts exclusion checks on SAM.gov. Truman saves the FAS workforce about 75 minutes for each new offer - and more than 2,300 hours to date.
  • Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) is an increasingly important concern for federal agencies, especially around electronics and Trade Agreements Act compliance. To increase customer confidence in the MAS Catalog offerings on GSA Advantage!, we’ve implemented a new process to support deactivating products considered significant supply chain risks based on the manufacturer's name and/or the product description. We’re also incorporating SCRM into critical acquisition vehicles.

Please visit our website to see all the improvements in our Fall 2020 Release and watch our new FMP video.

One more thing: Please check out GSA’s brand new podcast, GSA FAS Focus! On the latest episode, I join host Joan Kornblith to talk about all of the great things we’ve accomplished across our various FMP projects and releases.

Produced by GSA’s Office of Strategic Communication, GSA FAS Focus features interviews with agency leadership, project managers, thought leaders, and other experts about the latest projects, opportunities, and successes across FAS.

Our new GSA podcast is something I hope you’ll share with friends. While the subject matter is FAS focused, GSA FAS Focus is produced for everyone – you don’t need to have a special interest in acquisitions or deep knowledge of GSA solutions to enjoy the conversations and subjects covered in each episode.