Office of Acquisition and Logistics — Supplier Relationship Transformation
The changing dynamic for Veterans in the 21st century mandates that the Department of Veterans Affairs accomplish its multitude of missions more effectively and efficiently. Delivering services to this growing and changing population of Veterans will require cutting-edge information technology, innovative and improved acquisition processes, a far-reaching transformation of the VA workforce, and end-to-end innovations in management.
Within this environment there are many challenges and some are more urgent because they directly impact VA’s ability to deliver the right service or product to Veterans, at the right place, at the right time, with the right quality and with proper documentation. As part of the VA enterprise transformation, VA’s leadership has committed to addressing these priority mission challenges with the involvement of Veterans, VA suppliers, and management at all levels.
VA recognizes that our Supplier community is a critical partner in addressing these issues. We also know that the current VA business environment does not facilitate an easy or open exchange of information from the Supplier community to key VA decision makers. In an effort to improve and establish transparency in the process as well as increase VA access to the industry best of breed thought and innovation, the VA has embarked upon a transformation of the acquisition process under the staff cognizance of the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction. A key part of this transformation is Supplier Relationships.
News and Events
Advanced Planning Briefing for Industry (APBI)
The VA Technology Acquisition Center (TAC) successfully hosted their inaugural Advanced Planning Briefing for Industry (APBI) on November 17, 2009 in Eatontown, NJ. The conference was well attended with 210 companies, of which 92 were Large Businesses and 118 were Small Businesses. The breakdown of Small Businesses attending was: 37 Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB), 49 Veteran Owned Small Businesses (VOSB), 24 Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB), 3 HubZone Businesses and 26 Women Owned Small Businesses (WOSB). There were 372 total attendees, composed of 305 industry representatives (143 from Large Businesses and 161 from Small Businesses) and 67 government attendees.
Briefings (available at http://www.va.gov/oamm/oa/tac/apbi.cfm) were held throughout the day with presenters from the TAC, the VA Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization and the VA Office of Information & Technology (OI&T). An afternoon panel session responded to industry questions recorded throughout the day. The event concluded with a presentation and closing remarks from Mr. Glenn Haggstrom, the VA Executive Director for Acquisition, Logistics and Construction. The TAC has scheduled follow up industry “one-on-ones” to obtain feedback and comments on the VA Architecture Framework during the week of December 14-18, 2009 in Washington, DC. An announcement and registration procedures for these “one on ones” will be posted to FedBizOps.
VA Supplier Relationship Transformation Webinar
We held our first VA Supplier Relationship Transformation webinar/webcast on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 with over 150 participants from industry — a very successful first effort using this innovative communication medium. The VA Deputy Secretary provided an update on our efforts in his opening and closing remarks and again challenged both VA and industry to partner in an effort to provide good stewardship of our scarce resources and develop innovative ideas to support America’s Veterans. The webcast also included briefings from key VA Acquisition leadership who provided additional details on the initiative and the accelerated methodology for assessing industry concepts to meet the VA’s 13 Greatest Challenges. The webcast may be viewed at the following link:
http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=182053&s=1&k=0062287EBBA73A4817D61B1AD951B99D
Viewing and/or downloading of the webcast requires a quick registration at the site — this will ensure that we are able to add your e-mail address to our distribution list for future events and updates as part of this transformation initiative.
The webcast slides are available for download at VA_SupplierRelationshipTransformationForumWebcastPresentation_120909.ppt
Thank you to all who took the time from your busy schedules to participate and help VA make this a success! We are focusing on the questions and issues identified and submitted during the webcast and will post all questions/answers to this site soon. Please check our “Next Steps” page for a schedule of future events.
VA Needs Your Feedback!
We need your input and suggestions on how we can improve this site and how we can make this initiative more successful. If you have suggestions or comments, please submit them at the following link:
If you would like to submit a question relating to the VA’s 13 Greatest Challenges, please submit them at the following link: