Here’s What DGS Has Planned for 2024-25

At the tail end of May, the Department of General Services released its 2024-25 Strategic Plan with little fanfare.

While all of the agency’s divisions contributed to the strategic plan, the most pertinent to readers of Industry Insider — California will no doubt be the contributions from the Procurement Division and the Administration Division’s Enterprise Technology Solutions (ETS), and the Office of Policy, Training and FI$Cal Services (OPTFS).

For the Procurement Division, the coming year will focus on providing agencies with “innovative and sustainable contracting solutions and tools” in an “evolving environment.” The division listed three priorities to help accomplish this goal.

The division’s Office of Small Business and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Services will be developing new “cohort-based” training and tools for these business customers.

In addition, updates to the state’s IT model terms and conditions are imminent. Those terms and conditions have been under review since March, when officials gathered industry input. Deputy Director Angela Shell said during a June 10 vendor forum that those updates were expected within 30 days.

And lastly, the division is in the first phase of a Statewide Procurement and Contracting disparity study to “improve equity and achieve greater diversity in the state’s supplier base.” The study will determine if “minority-, woman-, LGBTQ-, and certified small and disabled veteran-owned businesses have equal access to state contracting opportunities.”

ETS, meanwhile, has set its focus on “data privacy and improvement of high-impact systems,” according to the document. This includes a continued push to migrate applications and files to the cloud; implementation of a best-practices data and analytics program to support department informational needs; and continued enhancement of the data privacy and security program. The data analytics program is two years into a three-year effort, and the data privacy and security program is two years into a “four-year goal.”

OPTFS’ efforts are more internally focused than the Procurement Division, though there are some initiatives underway that could trickle down to the department’s external customers.

The office will be partnering with ETS to automate the collection of forms through the Forms Management Center. “This automation initiative will modernize and streamline processes, making them easier for state agencies to complete, improving efficiency and effectiveness,” the plan reads. Another ETS partnership will focus on steering “employees through the proper training method and mitigate redundant tasks and approvals that deter employees from initially seeking training.”

And lastly, OPTFS will be focusing on updating policies and providing clear direction to state agencies and employees.