The federal government is the world’s largest buyer of goods and services, yet agencies frequently make purchases with little insight into what other agencies are buying. In fiscal year 2014, for example, more than 500 departments and agencies across the federal government spent more than $420 billion in purchases with only occasional collaboration across organizational lines. 

This fragmentation often leads to costly redundancies and inefficiencies in procurement actions, contracting vehicles and overall acquisition efforts. The Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte collaborated on this study, which reinforces that changes in the way the government acquires goods and services can help consolidate overlapping and duplicative acquisition processes to take advantage of the buying power of the federal government. 

Read our related whitepaper, “Human Resources Shared Services: Progress, Lessons and Opportunities.”

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