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FITARA aims to streamline the acquisitions process and eliminate wasteful buying practices. This will require changes from the current model of purchasing currently used in many agencies, to include more rapid delivery of capabilities to support the shortening IT life-cycle; more centralized buying to take advantage of shared services, leverage the government's buying power and reap the benefits of category management; better integration with program staff to ensure acquisitions meet program objectives; and better collaboration among stakeholders to ensure that acquired capabilities meet business and mission needs. For clarification of the distinction between acquisition and program management – program management is the set of activities to deliver a new or upgraded set of capabilities to ultimately support mission or business needs of the agency, and a program may involve the a series of related, ongoing projects. As part of a program, there may be one or more acquisitions (buying of labor or IT services, or hardware and software, in this context synonymous with “procurement”) to support the overall delivery of the program.
Key themes for Acquisition are:
- Involvement from all appropriate stakeholders, including CIO, CAO, CFO, CHCO (the CXOs) and the mission and business leadership
- Going beyond strategic sourcing vehicles to consolidate commodity purchasing and manage total cost of ownership
- Making evidence-based decisions based on accurate and actionable data, including enterprise spend data
- Timeliness to facilitate smaller, faster increments in program implementation
- Recognizing and incorporating IT security requirements as part of the acquisition process
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