Do You Sell to the Federal Government or Subcontract From a Company Who Does? Changes are coming to the cleaning industry that will leave a a couple of winners and everyone else loses!

Critical information has come to me from Professor Samuel Bornstein and need to alert the JanSan industry of changes to the Federal Procurement process that will cut off opportunities and possibly cause massive job losses.

FROM PROFESSOR SAMUEL BORNSTEIN:

Attention all vendors selling Janitorial and Sanitation (JanSan) or Maintenance and Repair (MRO) products, supplies and SERVICES to the federal government GSA Schedule 51V - Hardware ;  Schedule 56 - Buildings and Building Material/Industrial Services and Supplies;  Schedule 73 - Food Service, Hospitality, Cleaning Equipment and Supplies, Chemicals and Services;  Schedule 75 - Office Products/Supplies and Services and New Product/Technology;  Schedule 81 IB - Shipping, Packaging and Packing Supplies.

The General Services Administration (GSA) leases or occupies over 8,100 Public Buildings Service (PBS) leases and 1,500 government owned buildings.  This alert applies to all vendors selling JanSan and MRO to federal government agencies.

The GSA is working with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and all Federal Government Agencies to create 10 new government‐wide Federal Strategic Sourcing programs (FSSI) for commonly purchased products and services. One of these new programs will be for Janitorial and Sanitation supplies and services (JanSan) and Maintenance, Repair and Operation supplies and services (MRO).  If you are selling products or services in the above named GSA Schedules or you are hoping to in the future, you are at-risk of losing a substantial amount of your government business as GSA implements the FSSI for JanSan and MRO next month.

GSA’s FSSI JanSan and MRO initiatives will impact more than 20 federal agencies, both military and civilian, as active participants in this FSSI program. The FSSI program is intended to leverage the purchasing power of the federal government by awarding Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPA)s to a select few vendors who will provide the federal government with the lowest price. This FSSI process was first initiated in 2010 for Schedule 75 Office Supplies vendors where FSSI BPAs were awarded to only 15 vendors out of 560+ who were previously doing business with the federal government.

The outcome was the displacement of a significant number of small and large businesses with the resulting job losses which accompanied the financial distress from the loss of government sales.  There were a few winners but significantly more non-winners.  My Bornstein and Song research indicates that the FSSI program must be reevaluated due to the negative impact on these businesses and the US economy.  My intent is to prevent this from happening to you!