Data, Information, and the General Services Administration

(*This article was published on LinkedIn July 2, 2025.)

“Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.” ~ Ray Dalio

In 2016 in a GSA Blog Post GSA CIO David Shive launched GSA’s D2D platform claiming “We are now able to make more informed data-driven decisions…D2D allows us to see data in real-time, have productive conversations, make data-driven decisions, and predict outcomes so that we can best plan and prepare for the future.” (GSA CIO Blog, 09/2016)

In 2019 then GSA Administrator Emily Murphy was “more than just a little excited about her acquisition dashboard…giving her important decision-making information.” (FNN, 10/23/2019)

In January of this year Zach Whitman, Chief AI & Data Officer stated “One of the things I am most proud of…is how GSA’s data-driven approach has set a precedent for other federal agencies.” (GSA Blog Team, 01/10/2025)

What is the issue with these statements? Nothing really…other than the fact that GSA has all but admitted that they have no reliable data through which to make decisions.  Don’t believe me? Why then does GSA now mandate of Transaction Data Reporting initiative?  It is because their Schedules program has lacked the data needed to drive informed decisions.

The current leadership at GSA in Mr. Ehikian and Mr. Gruenbaum are obviously trying to correct this internally.  In their blog post “Reporting for Smarter Purchasing” (GSA, 06/09/2025) Mr. Ehikian states “data is central to these efforts to deliver the best outcomes and reduce costs in federal acquisitions.” (Yes!)  Mr. Gruenbaum adds “[TDR] will provide the federal government with the critical and essential market intelligence.” (Hmmm…not quite. It will provide you data. Market intelligence comes from what is concluded as a result of high quality data and the conclusion drawn).

This should call into question the claims GSA leadership make concerning industry pricing, manufacturer pricing practices, the roles that value-added resellers. These are the assumptions they carried into their current initiative to centralize contacting through their legacy (antiquated?) multiple award schedules program, and is an obviously uninformed view of how the marketplace works.

Uninformed is exactly why Mr. Larry Allen, former President of the Coalition for Federal Procurement and current appointee to GSA’s Office of Government-Wide policy, has been advising industry not to assume “government leaders know [about] commercial practices and how they work.” (FCW 06/12/2025)

Not only do they not know how commercial practices work, but it has been clear from the beginning that they entire effort has been a guessing game.  After all, if you don’t have insights into data through which to draw information and reach conclusions, what are you basing your policy initiatives on? This also implies that GSA has never been a reliable nor capable partner for federal agencies or industry partners throughout their 10 years as self-appointed leaders of the IT Category in government.  It has been entirely based upon smoke-and-mirrors rather than data, and this is not a surprise to many.

Now having said this, I am happy that Mr. Ehikian and Mr. Gruenbaum have mandated TDR in principle. You need high quality accurate data to make informed decisions.  But GSA’s own OIG noted in multiple audits that the agency has not been successful at doing even the simplest things within their pilot such as collecting and using accurate information.  They stated that “GSA’s plan to expand the TDR program despite persistent issues with the quality and usability of the TRD data.”  Now, after almost 10 years of experimenting with an ineffective TDR pilot where they did poor collection and proved an inability to conduct analytics, they now want to scale it to account for IT.  Why?  May have something to do with that program that NASA runs.

I said this months ago, and nothing that the Architects of Inefficiency nor the Coalition of Self-Interest have said or done changes anything.

You don’t give the Efficient to the Inefficient.

You don’t give the Capable to the Incapable.

You don’t give a Center of Excellence to the Center of Mediocrity.

All of the above is contradictory to the Trump Administrations restructuring of the public sector.

OMB will have a decision to make.  That decision should be pretty simple.  Leave NASA’s program to NASA’s stewardship, not GSA’s.

If the Administration wanted to be REALLY disruptive, they could make a game changing choice.  Strip GSA of their role in IT Category Management and place it in more capable hands.  Strip Cooperative Purchasing from GSA’s inefficient Schedules program and allow it for NASA (thereby having transactional information at the federal state, and local level). It appears by all measures and metrics that NASA is a more capable steward, and they have something that GSA doesn’t - transactional data (the single most important feature for strategic sourcing, category management, and necessary to manage supply-chain risk).

It isn’t too late for OMB to make that call, and it would be the right one to make.