The General Services Administration is losing ground as the primary contract vehicle for federal IT work. Although federal agencies still spend $22 billion annually on IT purchases made through the GSA via government-wide contract vehicles, lots of agencies turn elsewhere to find better deals.

"There are plenty of [agencies] who look past us there," said Ed O'Hare, assistant commissioner for the Federal Acquisition Service's Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS). "Absolutely, we're losing market share. I'm incredibly concerned."

In an interview with InformationWeek, O'Hare talked about ways the GSA can attract more business. Although the number of contracts sounds big, it has been stagnating for the last couple of years, he said.

O'Hare wants to increase the approximately 30 percent of federal IT purchases made through the GSA, getting it up to 50 percent. That plan includes revamping the agency's sales and its communications operation.

O'Hare also wants to trim the amount of time it takes a new vendor to get on the GSA schedule. Currently, it's about 112 days. And he wants to cut the number of days it takes to modify contracts from roughly 12 to five.

For more on GSA's contract plans:
- check out this InformationWeek article