How GSA Benefits the Public

GSA’s leadership, expertise, ideas and innovation are wide-ranging and touch nearly every aspect of the Federal government’s operations. Now more than ever, GSA is committed to lead change and champion new and dynamic ideas that meet the needs of our customers, the American taxpayers, while also addressing challenges that impact our mission, ranging from pandemics to climate change.

We will continue to deliver the best customer experience and value to the government and the American people in the years ahead. Our priorities are making government work for people and customers at all levels (including State, local, territorial, and Tribal governments), restoring trust by delivering services efficiently and effectively, and saving taxpayer money.

Real Estate

GSA’s Public Buildings Service (PBS) has jurisdiction, custody or control over one of the largest and most diverse real estate portfolios in the country with over 8,300 owned and leased assets in all 50 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia. PBS works with customer agencies to provide office space for over one million Federal employees. PBS is also leading conversations across the Federal government about the future of work and developing strategies and services to anticipate the evolving needs of the Federal workforce. GSA’s strategy in delivering the best customer experience and value in real estate focuses on developing solutions that optimize the real estate portfolio of federally owned and leased assets.

PBS, in partnership with its agency customers, also works to provide accessible, sustainable, and equitable workplace solutions that positively impact the government and the communities we serve. This includes working to decarbonize the real estate footprint — catalyzing innovation and job creation, while tackling the climate crisis.

Through effective and efficient construction, management and preservation of government buildings and space, GSA will work closely with our customers to make sure that every agency has the space they need to meet their missions and serve Americans today and in the future.

Acquisition

GSA serves as the premier provider of acquisition solutions to government organizations, including the military. GSA also has authority to make certain sources of supply available to State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments. Our acquisition offerings include equipment, technology, supplies, telecommunications, information technology, and private sector professional services. For example, GSA offers a broad range of disaster support to Federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as State and local governments. This includes supplies and services to respond to Presidentially declared major disasters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Serving customers has always been at the heart of our mission. We work every day to enhance and improve customer experience. We ensure customer agencies receive speedy access to core infrastructure services, emerging technologies, and innovative offerings. We also have a dedicated Office of Customer Experience that coordinates GSA’s customer feedback collection efforts, reducing duplication and creating a streamlined experience.

At GSA, we strive to continuously improve the process for buying and selling with and within the Federal government. Our Federal Marketplace Strategy fosters a seamless, simplified, people- centric buying and selling experience for customers, suppliers, and acquisition professionals. In addition, our Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization diligently ensures contracting opportunities are available to small businesses, businesses owned by women and service-disabled veterans, those operating in historically underutilized geographic areas, and small disadvantaged businesses.

To combat the climate crisis, GSA is working to leverage the purchasing power of the Federal government to drive innovation and prioritize action on climate change, including helping the Federal acquisition workforce consider sustainability and climate risk across all phases of the acquisition life cycle.

Technology

One of our strategic priorities at GSA is to modernize technology across government in order to protect against cyber threats and deliver a better digital experience for the American people. From procurement assistance to web standards to consulting, GSA improves the way Federal agencies buy, build, and use technology.

The Technology Transformation Services include 18F (a technology design consultancy), the Centers of Excellence, and Presidential Innovation Fellows. These offerings provide comprehensive services that elevate technology across government, catalyzing mission delivery and building public trust. Importantly, we also incorporate diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility principles and values in this work to ensure that technology services and solutions will be inclusive and accessible to all people.

Interagency Collaboration

GSA plays a central role in promoting interagency collaboration, centralized services, and shared solutions to improve management practices and operations across government. By fostering shared services, GSA helps Federal agencies elevate the quality and performance of mission support services and enables the workforce to better serve the American taxpayer. Specific services include such areas as hiring transactions, financial management, procurement, travel, and contract management.

When agencies create and manage these services individually, they often miss the opportunity to leverage economies of scale for commonly used products and services. Also, the resulting IT redundancies across agencies can be costly to develop and maintain, and difficult to secure against cybersecurity threats.

GSA’s Office of Government-wide Policy worked with the Office of Management and Budget and Federal agencies to establish a roadmap for a centralized marketplace of standardized, yet diverse and modern, solutions. These solutions will eliminate these redundancies, reduce project management risk, improve cybersecurity, and use the government’s buying power to deliver services efficiently and effectively.

Conclusion

The impacts of the global pandemic, the threat of climate change, and a rapidly evolving physical and digital landscape for the Federal workplace underscore the need for innovative solutions. GSA’s deep expertise across areas such as real estate and technology offer unprecedented opportunities to deliver services more efficiently and effectively, all while saving taxpayer money. In this moment of change, GSA is uniquely positioned to help our customer agencies deliver for the American people by providing critical tools, systems, solutions, and expertise at the best value.