On the heels of its OS3 campaign, on September 18 GSA put out an RFI for Building and Maintenance Operations (BMO) Services, anticipating a future move towards a Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative for services. If you are in this industry, it is important to provide your insight and direction to these potential opportunities.

GSA is calling on business owners in the public and private sectors with any size business to give information regarding service and labor categories, service groupings, and geographic service areas. The information obtained from this RFI will be used to better grasp vendors’ present and future abilities to cater to the needs of customers in terms of available products and services and the areas they are able to serve. Participants have until October 3^rd to request clarifications, and responses are due no later than October 17. Later in 2015, GSA plans on holding an industry day to gather more input from industry members. For now, the BMO service categories have been divided into Operations and Maintenance Services and Facility Support Services. Geographic location is also important to the BMO team. The current plan for this FSSI is to implement procedures and restrictions in phases that will be based on geographic areas.

Like the OS3 FSSI before it, the BMO FSSI promises to give customers better prices, increasing competition amongst contractors by reducing the number of available contracts. This ostensibly has the added advantage of directing those with purchasing power for their organization towards buying from businesses with HUB and 8a designations. FSSI has come under fire for this, with vendors noting that reducing the overall number of contracts provides less benefits for vendors than customers. Any company that falls under the BMO category, such as those offering HVAC maintenance, landscaping, and other building management services, is encouraged to give input to GSA to ensure that the organization comprehends the effect of the FSSI on current and potential contract holders.

Interested businesses may go to here to download the RFI document and related attachments.