Federal, Agencies, Merge, Shared Services

US federal agencies set to merge shared services

The United States General Services Administration (GSA) and the Interior Department’s National Business Center are close to integrating their separate shared-services offerings to help agencies meet the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 deadline, which requires agencies to begin issuing interoperable Personal Identity Verification cards to employees and contractors by Oct. 27. The cards will give employees access to federal buildings and, eventually, computer systems. 

While about 10 large agencies, including the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, State and Veterans Affairs, are attempting to meet the deadline alone, more than 30 agencies will be looking to join up with a shared-services provider. This is a merger aimed at giving agencies the experience of a shared-services provider, and volume discounts.

The agencies are talking about a merger now because NBC is scheduled to award a contract for support services this month. If NBC goes ahead with the award, the organization would be competing with GSA for federal customers.

This could be problematic because the GSA contract is built around economies of scale, meaning that the price goes down as more agencies sign up.

GSA last month established its Managed Service Office and awarded BearingPoint Inc. of McLean, Va., a five-year, $104 million contract for turnkey solutions that the agency hopes will help agencies begin enrolling employees and contractors and issue smart cards on a phased-in basis. That contract award is being protested by several losing bidders.

Industry observers said that a union between the two agencies makes sense, although NBC’s customers might actually be in a better position than GSA’s.

“NBC already provides these services [under the HR LOB initiative] to agencies and has customers, they already can provide that capability” of issuing cards and enrolling new employees, said an industry official who requested anonymity. “I’m not sure what GSA can offer to NBC customers.”