California's newly convened Vendor Advisory Council will weigh in with recommendations for how the state could revamp its procurement strategy and streamline the state's complicated array of contract vehicles.
The advisory body, which met for the first time this month, will form work groups to focus on those core topics — procurement reform and contracting — with diverse representation among large, medium and small companies as well as Disabled Veteran Business Enterprises (DVBEs) and women-owned firms.
"It was really time to put a think tank of folks together in the vendor community, state staff, IT and business staff and legal folks to pull together a structure to start addressing some tangible procurement reform in areas where the vendor community felt like they weren't being heard," said Chris Cruz, chief deputy director of operations at the California Department of Technology, in an interview with Techwire.
During the past six months, Cruz has been a key driver in forming the Vendor Advisory Council. State CIO Amy Tong and other executives from the Department of Technology and Department of General Services, and agency- and department-level CIOs are participating and supporting the effort. Three national technology industry groups also have provided input.
The council's work groups will review documentation, identify standards and requirements, and make recommendations. The Department of Technology intends to integrate those recommendations into a new strategy, or "road map," for procurement and contracting.
Specifically, Cruz said the aim is to have the vendor council look at how to streamline and standardize the 100-plus individual contracts — leveraged procurement agreements, cloud contracts, and others — that are available to state agencies and departments through the Department of Technology, the Department of General Services or the National Association of State Procurement Officers (NASPO).
The new procurement strategy will attempt to clarify which procurement vehicles that agencies and departments should utilize for specific commodity-based services and simplify the landscape by developing common definitions and common terms and conditions across the contracts.
"If we can get everybody working on the same ball team here moving forward, we can make some tangible changes and really look at reform, especially in procurement or other areas where it's needed," Cruz said.
The advisory council also will revisit the parameters of a vendor performance scorecard the Department of Technology has proposed that could someday be used as a factor in evaluating and awarding future contracts. A pilot of the scorecard originally scheduled to occur 2016 likely will be pushed back in order to give the council the opportunity to recommend further revisions and recommendations. Cruz said the scorecard must be "fair and equitable to both sides" — the state and the vendor community. Other work groups will be formed within the Vendor Advisory Council as they're needed.
Cruz said his hope is that the council sparks active participation and collaboration between the state and vendors. He said the Department of Technology is aware that some stakeholders have in the past been frustrated that the state asks for their feedback after — not before — policy decisions are made.
Cruz said he and Tong have been a department CIOs during the course of their careers, so they've seen firsthand, from the perspective of a customer, the gaps in service delivery and what isn't working in procurement that the advisory council can help address.
"I think this [council and strategy] brings a different approach to what we want to do, and what we've heard from the administration is that they want us to be very transparent and they want us to move the organization forward and mature it," Cruz said.
