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Sharing Quality Services FAQ

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The SQS Strategy intends to:

  1. Improve mission support services to agencies so they can focus on mission delivery to taxpayers.
  2. Create process improvements so our workforce can focus on higher value work that aligns with agency missions.
  3. Establish agreed upon standards to bring modern solutions to government that reduce customization and enhance interoperability between systems.
  4. Increase adoption of marketplaces and existing shared services that already produce value.
  5. Plan for additional shared service offerings to support mission support functions.

  • Shared services is an industry best practice growing in popularity across the private sector that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the federal government. In its July 2023 paper on ‘Measuring the Business Value of Shared Services’, the Shared Services Leadership Coalition reported that 60% of large private organizations have transitioned to an approach of organization-wide shared services. Many state governments, nonprofits, and businesses have been able to reduce costs and improve their operational effectiveness by adopting shared services.
  • Shared services are designed to increase government efficiency, address redundancies, improve service quality, reduce operating costs, and drive better use of technology across the federal government. The federal government can achieve:
    • Reduced Operating Costs – Shared services help agencies achieve economies of scale that lead to reduced operating costs and greater value per taxpayer dollar spent.
    • Adoption of Modern Technology – Modernizing technology with best-in-class commercial solutions cuts the complexity, maintenance costs, and risk of legacy systems and improves access to emerging capabilities such as Artificial Intelligence and robotic process automation that enhance the efficiency of federal programs and the public they serve.
    • Better Management – Shared services enable better management by offering technology, support, and data needed to prioritize outcomes and reduce duplication to focus resources on customer experience and mission delivery.
    • Smarter Buying – Fully leveraging the buying power, data, and market research benefit of best-in-class contracts will reduce procurement overhead, increase innovation, and drive opportunities to high-performing providers based on merit.
    • Moving to Higher Value Work – An enterprise approach to servicing agency mission support functions will better align people to mission and enable the personnel shift to higher value work across the government.
  • Change is difficult. Achieving the benefits of shared services is a long-term effort that challenges leaders to rethink their decision-making.

  • Leveraging Lessons Learned – This strategy is informed by the successes and lessons learned from previous initiatives and identifies a long-term vision that will deliver better value and outcomes for American taxpayers.
  • Following the lead of Successful Existing Services – There are great examples of how shared services work in government today – such as the efficiencies and scale GSA can deliver when managing agencies' vehicle fleet. Managing this shared service resulted in a savings of $0.23 cents per mile driven when GSA manages an agencies’ fleet compared to when agencies manage their own.
  • We are using a well-researched, data-driven approach to identify common standards that aligns to commercial best practices. The underpinning of this entire effort is ensuring we follow standards to help determine where sharing opportunities make sense and where they do not. It is an essential first step to drive economies of scale and leverage the government’s buying power.
  • This effort moves away from the current “one size fits all” model and creates long-term options for agencies based on their own maturity and readiness. It allows agencies to partner with Quality Service Management Offices (QSMOs) to implement a sharing model at their agency, which may include technology, services or both.

  • QSMOs act as marketplace brokers. The QSMOs themselves are not shared service providers. Instead each QSMO operates a marketplace of pre-vetted commercial and federal solutions for their specific functional area. Marketplace solutions are designed to address common agency needs and are based on government-wide standards (defined in the Federal Integrated Business Framework). QSMOs are strategically located within parent organizations whose mission is consistent with the QSMO’s functional area, ensuring alignment for long term stability.
  • Besides setting up and managing shared service marketplaces, QSMOs are instrumental in working with current federal shared service providers on their modernization plans and providing support for efforts to obtain funding for much needed technology modernization efforts. The QSMOs are able to partner with federal shared service providers to determine options to modernization strategy and timing for migrating themselves and their customers to solutions available in QSMO marketplaces (via a Joint Business Case document). Approval to partner with federal shared service providers must come from the agency Deputy Secretary (in collaboration with the Senior Accountable Point of Contact (SAPOC)), as well as final approval on the path forward.
  • All agencies that have a need for new investment to modernize or enhance their software or services in an area where a QSMO is pre-designated or designated must engage with the QSMO to discuss their goals, business needs and timelines. QSMO offerings leverage government-wide standards (defined in the Federal Integrated Business Framework).

  • We have identified lead agencies that work on creating standards for each functional area, in partnership with their cross-agency community, to make sure every agency has the opportunity to contribute their own requirements to the enterprise-wide effort which are documented in the Federal Integrated Business Framework (FIBF).
  • Once the majority of the standards for a functional area are agreed upon by the cross-agency community, it may be considered a good candidate for sharing. If there are regulatory or legislative reasons for something to be different for an agency, that will be addressed outside of the standards process.
  • In FY24, OSSPI developed a performance management framework for shared service providers in the marketplaces that consists of six dimensions (Customer, Financial, Standards Adoption, Provider Operations, Technology, and Organizational). The framework was developed in collaboration and consultation with the QSMOs and OMB and is based on insights from provider outreach and industry research and best practices. Each dimension contains common performance measures intended to help assess and monitor provider performance. See ussm.gsa.gov/performance-management/ for more information.
  • A role of the Shared Services Governance Board (SSGB) is to understand how marketplace offerings align to generally accepted performance management standards and to propose corrective actions when necessary.
  • OSSPI conducts an Annual Shared Services Customer Satisfaction Survey to assess whether and how well provider offerings meet agency needs and to identify additional service needs.

  • Agencies have been involved for years in building the standards that are the backbone of this strategy through their participation in standards working groups and the Business Standards Council (BSC).
  • Customer agency perspectives are heard through the ‘voice of the customer’ bodies, i.e. the Shared Services Governance Board (SSGB) and agency Senior Accountable Points of Contact (SAPOCs). These bodies are essential to the direction-setting that will garner long-term support for the implementation of shared services into agency management functions on a government-wide basis.

  • Systems and solutions available through QSMO marketplaces are based on standards established in the Federal Integrated Business Framework (FIBF).
  • The QSMOs are responsible for helping agencies rethink legacy business processes to drive to new standardized solutions and services offered through the QSMO’s marketplace.

  • The QSMOs are centralized locations for services and solutions for their designated functional areas. Agencies should engage with the QSMOs to discuss their goals, business needs, and timeline. Any deviation from the QSMO services will require QSMO and OMB agreement.

  • The partnership between government and industry is critical to the success of this strategy.
  • Government’s Role
    • QSMOs drive standardization across government, manage contracted solutions, coordinate how government will satisfy unique federal requirements and manage the integration of solutions across QSMOs and with agency systems through common interfaces.
    • QSMOs build their marketplaces in accordance with the FAR. Specifically, FAR sections 10-12 require that the government: perform market research to determine if commercial items can meet the Government's needs before looking at developing something exclusively for the Government's use; use commercial items when they are available and require prime contractors and subcontractors to also use commercial products to the maximum extent practicable; and write its requirements in such a way that it encourages offerors to supply commercial solutions.
    • The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), GSA’s Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvement (OSSPI), the voice of the customer bodies (i.e. the Shared Services Governance Board (SSGB) and agency Senior Accountable Points of Contact (SAPOCs)) and the President’s Management Council (PMC) will continue to guide the future vision for this effort, hold QSMOs accountable for their objectives, ensure the voice of the customer is heard, and provide guidance on challenges and risks as they arise.
  • Industry’s Role
    • Industry is being asked to bring modern, configurable and outcome-oriented solutions to the government that align with the data and business standards developed in the Federal Integrated Business Framework (FIBF) to reduce unnecessary or duplicative technology footprint and minimize the risk and cost of operating aging technology. Additionally, industry is expected to bring solutions that are innovative and improve customer experience.
    • Industry is instrumental in providing business support that allows the government to be more agile and responsive to changes in demand.
    • Commercial solutions are a critical component of the marketplaces to provide customer agencies a broad range of options for their mission support needs.

  • As agencies set their strategic plans, they should engage with the QSMOs.
  • OMB Memorandum M-19-16 does not set timelines for transition but rather encourages agencies to engage with QSMOs to plan for the next phase of the technology/service prior to its end of life. The QSMOs act as marketplace brokers and can provide agencies with valuable resources and insight.

  • The pre-designation phase is designed to allow the QSMOs to begin to plan for implementation and what services and solutions will be provided. Specific scope and timeline for services offered by the QSMOs are determined and defined during the pre-designation phase.
  • See ussm.gsa.gov/qsmo for more information regarding (pre-)designated functional areas.
  • Visit the QSMO marketplaces to explore each QSMO’s service and solutions offerings.

  • Once a pre-designated QSMO submits its 5-year Marketplace Implementation Plan for consideration, the plan is reviewed by the SSGB, GSA OSSPI and OMB;
  • OSSPI coordinates the feedback/comments and provides a consolidated set of questions/feedback/comments to the pre-designated QSMO;
  • The pre-designated QSMO presents its Marketplace Plan to the SSGB (intended to be a verbal summary of their plans and an opportunity to address additional questions from the SSGB);
  • SSGB votes on their designation recommendation and this recommendation is send to OMB for consideration;
  • OMB and the pre-designated QSMO engage in direct discussions to finalize the plans including funding strategies;
  • OMB makes a final determination and announces the QSMO designations.

  • Based on need or customer demand, additional services can be added to any QSMO.
  • OMB, OSSPI, and the voice of the customer bodies regularly evaluate the need for marketplaces in additional functional areas.

  • As OMB Memorandum M-19-16 states, once an agency is pre-designated as a QSMO for a particular set of mission support functions, agencies are to engage with the QSMO to discuss their goals, business needs, and timeline for modernization.
  • Please refer to the Investment Action Plan process on ussm.gsa.gov for further detail on working with the QSMOs to assess business needs and, if needed, submit an Investment Action Plan to leverage services outside of the QSMO.

  • The PMC, OMB, the SSGB, SAPOCs, and GSA OSSPI will continue to guide the future vision for this effort, hold the QSMOs accountable for their objectives, share the voice of the customer and provide guidance on challenges and risks as they arise. See more on the governance structure on ussm.gsa.gov/governance.
  • Using input provided by customer agencies, the QSMOs, OMB, and industry, OSSPI has developed a set of performance measures along five dimensions to monitor marketplace performance over time. OSSPI’s Annual Marketplace Satisfaction Survey is a key input for keeping a pulse on customer sentiment with regard to the marketplaces. See ussm.gsa.gov/performance-management/ for more information.

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