GSA Awards First Wave of Contracts in White House’s IT Overhaul

The General Services Administration on Wednesday announced awardees of the first round of contracts to support the White House’s IT Modernization Centers of Excellence.

GSA issued awards to support each of the five pillars in the administration’s IT modernization efforts: SIE Consulting Group for cloud adoption; McKinsey & Company for IT infrastructure optimization; ICF Incorporated for customer experience; Kaiser Associates for contact center; and ICF Incorporated for service delivery analytics.

Beginning with the Agriculture Department—the testbed agency for the first centers of excellence—the groups will develop strategies to tackle issues within their respective spheres, creating best practices so other agencies can quickly follow suit.  
Later in the year, officials expect a second phase wherein industry will compete for contracts strategized during the effort’s first phase. Companies that participated in the first phase will be barred from competing on contracts in the second phase to avoid conflicts of interest.

“The awards announced today mark a major milestone in implementing the administration’s far-reaching federal IT modernization effort,” Joanne Collins Smee, the GSA’s acting director of Technology Transformation Services and deputy commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, said in a statement. “GSA will play a pivotal role in this endeavor, and our team will be at the tip of the spear constantly focusing on meaningfully improving outcomes for our agency partners.”

Collins Smee added she is “very pleased” GSA also brought on Bob DeLuca, the former chief information officer at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, to assist with day-to-day operations for the Centers of Excellence program.