Established, experienced government contractors could have an edge in supplying IT solutions over classically commercial companies if secure supply chain requirements contemplated in a recent GSA RFI become actual requirements.  The May 9th RFI would require end-to-end monitoring for all components placed in finished IT products sold through GSA’s IT Schedule, and perhaps other IT contracts as well.  Though such tracking processes are expensive, traditional government contractors have likely already developed such programs in order to business with DOD.

Congress required DOD to ensure that its contractors had secure supply chains over two years ago.  In fact, the GSA RFI was likely issued so that GSA can take steps to satisfy the requirements of its largest customer.   Still, the Schedules program is inherently a commercial item contract vehicle and most companies holding Schedule contracts are not government-only or even “government-mostly” firms.  As such, the GSA RFI has been the topic of much discussion.  Whatever the outcome of that dialog is, however, anyone wanting to do IT business with DOD needs to have secure supply chain mechanisms in place.  The contract vehicle can be an afterthought.