BEEF 1. (07-09) “My Latest Beef” is my way of exposing what
I believe to be insane situations GSA has dealt me. Rhyme and reason are out of the question on these issues, this
comes down to a combination of bad or no policy and people with attitude
problems, bad direction and no accountablility.
In trying to think of a headline for
this “BEEF” I’ve come up with several.
GSA Group XX, Contracting Officer (CO)
rejects a GSA Advantage Upload (product catalog and text file uploads) because he
doesn't like the Product Names used in the upload file. Gimmie a break!
It is ridiculous and shameful that our
federal employees are so unaccountably out-of-control with demands (like this)
and they can get away with it on a daily basis. No one is policing this breakdown. We all should be ashamed.
In order to do an upload to the GSA
Advantage system using EDI or the Schedule Input Program (SIP) technology, we
have to identify and provide over 60 different bits/fields of data about each
line item offered to the government, at minimum. If a contractor has 100 line items they offer to the feds, multiply
65 x 100 items and you will see I am responsible for getting over 6,500 data
fields filled in properly and transmitted past various validation tests before
the files even get to the CO to review.
Most of this data is easily obtainable,
like part numbers, product descriptions, list price, GSA price with the Industrial
Funding Fee of ¾ of 1% added back into the price, and so on. Because of the format of GSA Advantage, GSA
added some new fields of data that here to fore have not been subject to prior
GSA approval, like “Product Names.”
We work with the contractors to complete
an excel spreadsheet of all 65 columns of information we need for this upload
and after checking the math to make sure the pricing is absolutely on target,
we can migrate this data to EDI and send it to GSA for approval and eventual posting
on the GSA ADV system. We sent our
upload to GSA on xxxx/xx. And after all this prep, in this case for xx line items, xxx bits of information gathered and
disclosed, this CO rejects our upload on xx/xx/xx with a message that merely
says, “no mfg listed.”
Here is what happened next and how long it
took to happen.
Put the Manufacturer Name in the Product
Name field, and rejects our upload.
That does not make sense since there is
already a Manufacturer name field where he should be able to find the
manufacturer name. His problem is he
can’t see the Manufacturer name in his GSA CORS (on-line review) system because
it is not in that system.
Note: The person I am describing here, Contracting Officer (CO) let’s call him Johnny Silver, has the same boss, Freddy McGruder, as the GSA individual referenced in my next BEEF 2.
Here’s another headline…
GSA Contractor’s product line and
pricing revisions/updates miss the entire 2007 Federal Buying Season on GSA
Advantage due to insane demand of CO.
And another… GSA COs hold too much rule
over submissions for GSA ADV.
For product catalogs, as well as text file uploads, there should be a policy as to what is acceptable and what is not. Acceptance or rejection should not be subject to anything not previously agreed to and approved beforehand. Allowing these behaviorally challenged, ill-equipped personnel this much un-censored authority is killing a half decent idea and concept.
For anyone who has accomplished an upload to
the GSA Advantage system (www.GSAadvantage.gov, and we are talking about a
small group of people here), you know that "Product Names" are
basically an arbitrary value we have to input into the government’s electronic
web EC data system, like the website URL for the item. Whereas GSA pricing, product descriptions,
part #s, FOB points, and over 60 more vital and required pieces of information
and data must be approved prior to upload, in all my experience, GSA
contractors have never been required to obtain approval for “Product Names.”
My CO, Johnny Silver, was asserting his authority because he could, whether it made sense or not. And no one was willing to step in and stop him.
Small upload rejections like this are an avoidable waste of time, money and energy and hold up the whole contract administration/management process. Plus, the products are not posting on GSA Advantage and are not publicly available to the federal marketplace. This has a direct effect on government sales. When this happens, I have to spend time trying to find the true reason for the rejection (it took one month to get any response from, anyone at GSA as to why the upload was rejected) implementing the fix and re-uploading the files. Senseless rejections, like this, cost the contractor money in upload fees and waste our taxpayer dollars with the back and forth time loss, and the longer it takes this contractor’s new pricing to appear on-line, the more money the government is losing/wasting.. There is a policy missing here.
As mentioned, in most GSA Groups, much of
the data needed for these routine uploads is required and subject to prior GSA
approval. Some Groups, like 73 or 78,
award a discount from a hard-copy pricelist and do not require specific (and
IFF-fee-included) GSA pricing approval prior to award, nor do they require
excel spreadsheet data. Come on, let’s
get with the 21st century. That is food
for another BEEF.
Anything subject to approval for GSA
Advantage must be agreed to at award and displayed/presented to GSA in
spreadsheet format for every GSA contract.
We need uniformity and central management control at GSA.
To recap, in the Summer of 2007, one CO, Johnny Silver, delayed the upload process for nearly 900 items at the height of the federal buying season, because he didn't like the Product Names offered in the product catalog files uploaded/provided. If this CO were that concerned about the Product Names, he could have approved the upload, remarked that he would like better names in the future and leave it at that. After hundreds of uploads to the GSA ADV VSC (Vendor Support Center) system, this is the first-ever rejection due to the choice of Product Names. Many COs and Contract Specialists tell me they don't have the time to check the data in uploads and leave it to the contractor to "Get It Right." While other COs, like this one, have the authority to demand bizarre requirements/compliance,
The extra rub here is that the official GSA
rejection notification of early September 2007, stated "no mfg
listed." At the time of the rejection, the CO told me he objected to some
of the Product Names we used and couldn't see the manufacturer’s names in GSA’s
CORS web-based system (GSA internal - Contract Officer Review System).
In the upload we sent, we had the manufacturer name in the spreadsheet and dB and EDI data field for "Manufacturer Name." Go figure. But the CO said he could not see the manufacturer name in GSA’s CORS, and he wanted me to relate that complaint to the VSC. Three weeks after I notified the VSC, I heard that he had changed the focus of his objection from the manufacturer name to the Product Names. This kind of activity can be uploaded and approved the same day, yet this CO was wasting precious time, over nothing but his whim.
This seasoned CO then communicated that he wanted the manufacturer name in the “Product Name” field. This way, HE could finally see the manufacturer name in his CORS (review) files. The Product Name field is currently limited to 40 characters of 10-point Courier type and does not display in CORS.
This CO previously had rejected our related
text-file upload, also for manufacturer-name issues. By this point, I had had enough of his nit-picking
rejections. From my standpoint, his
reasons were already suspect. From his
standpoint, he is just doing his job while I bully and browbeat him (his
words). It’s actually the other way
around. He could insist I upload using
all Chinese characters instead of English, and there is no one willing to step
in and stop him.
I went two rungs up the ladder from him and neither GSA boss would step in and stop the madness.
I think he needs retraining or an early out, so I agree with the browbeating part. I do not agree with the bullying part, as I have never been a bully and had recently won a “Most Honest Golfer” award. I have been trying to get GSA to see the real insanity of these situations and to devise a policy to prevent their reoccurrence, to no avail.
As noted, nearly three weeks after our initial replacement catalog upload, this CO cited Product Names, not manufacturer names, as cause for his objection. In my outraged email message to him, I asserted that he had no authority to object to a Product Name; this was unprecedented regarding an upload. I added that he was wasting our time and tax dollars on this minute issue, and to accept the files uploaded for GSA Advantage.
With no input or response from his boss,
Freddy McGruder, another boss GSA person (new to me) appeared and backed up the
CO's demands.
And then the new person changed his mind too, and withdrew his agreement on the demand of adding the manufacturer name to the Product Name field. Later, even Shelly Bowdren, another CO I had tons of issue with, confided that she also agreed with my side of the situation.
I let out a lot of GSA frustration on the new guy too, as earlier in the week, when I informed another GSA division boss, who was defending the use of GSA deadlines and threats (yet another topic for another BEEF): "If it is good for the goose, it is good for the gander." I view GSA as one poorly managed organization, not as individuals. If GSA staff want to threaten me with deadlines and contract cancellations, they should expect the same from me, and they only have themselves to blame. “What is good for the goose is also good for…”
GSA’s claims to "help" the contractor's marketing efforts are at best misleading. By and large, these people can't really manage contracts let alone offer marketing assistance. I doubt most GSA veterans have college degrees, more-or-less “marketing “degrees. I would be very careful of any marketing assistance from GSA.
In my experience, GSA "marketing" consists of not allowing mentions and data links of multiple GSA schedules on a single GSA ADV text file, and removing corporate logos from GSA ADV. These policies achieve the opposite of marketing. And then there is the "marketing" assistance provided by the Schedule Contract Management Division, WHICH DOES NOT MANAGE CONTRACTS ( And has since changed their name . Industrial Operations Analysts (IOAs) conduct their annual, semi-annual, whenever, GSA IFF audits to make sure they are getting their fair share of the contractor’s profits on GSA schedule sales. I know of no other federal agency that charges contractors to participate in solving their procurement needs. And GSA says it’s not funded by the government?
To get back on track, with the advent of the GSA Advantage system (and the On-Line Schedule System (OSS) before that), GSA never has had any input or authority over the Product Names. It should stay out of "marketing." Let's not add to its list of GSA screw-ups.
COs should concentrate on managing
contracts, approving mods, returning phone calls and emails, and just doing
their jobs, in general.
If Product Names are subject to GSA
approval, they should be required and approved at the award level and not at
the upload level. If they are subject
to GSA approval, that information should be spelled out in the solicitation
and/or FAR.
What makes this exact situation worse is the CO sent me some examples of acceptable Product Names that make no sense to anyone except the manufacturer and potential end-users. For example: an approved product name is "OMNEON MTT 3104 CONFORMTOOL." He rejected "SNet." He wanted and eventually received "YYYYYYYYY-SNET." So now, in order to get this CO to approve my upload for this contractor, the manufacturer name is repeated in the file/upload. This entire development and resulting situation was preventable. None of this makes any sense. This preventable episode affected an extravagant waste of time and taxpayer dollars to appease one self-described "persnickety" person. These CO’s have too much veto power over upload data they (GSA) have never required for approval.
Haven't the contractors jumped through enough hoops already, at this most visible stage in the GSA process, only to get upload rejections for reasons like this?
This is the first installment of "My Latest Beef" and will most likely turn into the first entry in our new GSA-BLOG feature The object of this effort is to draw attention to the problematic low-hanging-fruit-type issues that GSA can easily fix.
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Send us your GSA experiences
to share with everyone else. Maybe,
together we can change GSA. TSbridge@FBBS-GSA.com