James Krouse Federal Quotations

OMB acknowledges that while reporting tools for the Federal Information Security Management Act and systems training remain solid, more work is needed in security product & systems evaluation and response initiatives. In addition, more focus will be placed on how agencies identify and manage risk.

If state and local spending follows a trend similar to that of federal agencies over the past 10 years, GSA Schedule 70 could become a significant centralizing force for the public sector IT market.

This is a new era in government spending practices and these cost-saving measures will affect federal IT budgets and, therefore, vendor opportunities.

The Office of Management and Budget has stressed the importance of performance and measurement to all federal agencies for their budget requests and use of funds. The introduction of several programs designed to review systems and program performance has resulted in efficiencies and cost-saving efforts.

The federal government is acting more and more like a private sector business. They are cutting costs, reviewing opportunities closely, and conducting cost-benefit analyses for their IT investments. This is a new era in government spending practices and these cost-saving measures will affect federal IT budgets and, therefore, vendor opportunities.

However, it comes during a year in which total federal IT spending is still increasing, so this represents a shift specifically away from the schedules as a procurement channel and not a general decline in the market.