The Federal Government spends over $330 billion on common goods and services every year, including items that enable agencies to fulfill their mission and provide vital resources to the public such as medical supplies and services for veterans, working dogs for law enforcement, and essential equipment for federal emergency assistance. However, because agencies traditionally buy in a fragmented manner, taxpayers do not get the benefit of the Government’s position as the largest buyer in the world. The Category Management Cross-Agency Priority Goal team is addressing this challenge by helping the Government apply smart decision-making strategies (or category management principles) to reduce duplicative contracts and provide solutions where agencies are buying the same kinds of goods and services.
Category management is a commercial best practice for buying common goods and services the government has adopted to find the best value, meet the government’s small business goals, and ultimately save money for taxpayers. Category management encourages competition and transparency, makes buying smarter, and builds a stronger government.
The Category Management team recently released several tools, trainings, and dashboards to help agencies implement category management strategies, including:
Dashboards and Tools:
- Small Business Dashboard allows users to dynamically explore and export small business data with options to view small business by different metrics.
- Research and Pricing Tools provide data related to acquisition and category management spend, pricing, and market research (data accessible by Federal users).
Training Opportunities:
- Federal Acquisition Institute Courses, including Category Management Foundations and monthly Data/Dashboard Demos (information accessible by Federal users).
Stay up to date on goal progress through the Category Management CAP Goal page.