GSA Federal Acquisition Service Deputy Commissioner Kevin Youel Page stated last week that his agency intends to move forward, at least for now, with plans to collect transactional sales data from GSA Multiple Award Schedule service contractors, even while acknowledging that there is virtually no chance the agency will be able to provide customers with accurate price comparison information on such sales.  Page told an audience gathered to hear a panel discussion on TDR that transactional sales data for services might still provide useful information on the types of services and labor categories customer agencies buy the most, enabling GSA to better tailor solutions to meet those needs.  The products portion of TDR will also continue to move ahead, as over 1,000 companies have signed the TDR modification.

Most of industry, however, remains concerned.  Ample evidence on similar data gathering exercises at GSA show that pricing data, such as that collected via the TDR pilot, is used overwhelmingly for one reason:  to play “gotcha” with contractors and push to reduce prices based on the concept that everything brought via Schedule contracts can be reduced to a commodity.  Companies providing quality solutions that don’t fit in this “race to the bottom” pricing should take note.  While GSA leadership insists the use of TDR information will be for other purposes, there are already several examples of where actions have not followed the intended policy.