Category Management - Leveraging Common Contracts and Best Practices to Drive Savings and Efficiencies

Goal Statement

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Federal agencies will leverage common contracts, meaning that they share in contracts that get the best value for taxpayers, in order to buy common goods and services as an enterprise. This approach will eliminate redundancies, increase efficiency, and deliver more value and savings from Federal acquisition programs.

By the end of FY 2020, the Government will achieve $18 billion in savings for taxpayers by applying category management principles—or smart decision-making where agencies buy the same kinds of goods and services through best value contract solutions—to 60% of common spend.¹ In addition, the Government will reduce duplicative contracts by 50,000, potentially reducing administrative costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Challenge

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The Federal Government spends over $300 billion² on common goods and services every year. However, because agencies buy in a fragmented manner, taxpayers often do not get the benefit of the Government’s position as the largest buyer in the world. Hundreds—and in some cases thousands—of duplicative contracts are awarded to the same vendors for similar requirements. This fragmentation leads agencies to pay significantly different prices—sometimes varying by over 300%³—for the same items.

What Success Looks Like

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Success means the Government will not only save taxpayer dollars but will improve mission outcomes. For example, this work will allow:  our law enforcement personnel to ensure their safety through easy access to equipment such as ammunition and body armor; medical professionals to save time and focus more on patients by ordering pharmaceuticals through electronic catalogues; agencies to more easily prioritize modernizing the Government’s IT infrastructure, to include efforts such as buying standardized computers; and the goal will be evaluated using industry best practice metrics, including savings, spend through common contract solutions, reduction of duplicative contracts, small business utilization and training the workforce.

Goal Action Plans & Progress Updates

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