GSA Aims To Cut $600 Million In Printing Costs

50 Most Influential Government CIOs

The General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) to 11 government contractors in an effort to lower federal agencies' printing costs to the tune of $600 million over the next four years.

The GSA's move under its Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) Program is part of the Obama administration's Campaign to Cut Waste, a broad effort to eliminate wasteful spending across the federal government.

Under the FSSI Print Management program, the GSA awarded blanket purchase agreements to the following contractors to encourage the feds to practice more sustainable printing behavior: ABM Federal, ASE Direct, Cannon IV, Canon USA, CTI, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, PrinTree, Ricoh, Sharp and Xerox. Five of the 11 are small businesses.

In addition to saving agencies millions in printing costs, the Print Management program itself is expected to save taxpayers $330 million, according to the GSA.

Federal procurement officials have been working with the GSA, which acquires products and services for federal agencies, to reduce its spending in a number of areas to meet the goals of the Campaign to Cut Waste, said Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Dan Gordon in a statement. Print management is another area in which the feds can see substantial savings through more careful spending, he said.

[The feds are going mobile. Check out the 14 Most Popular Government Mobile Apps]

Twenty-four federal agencies worked together to design the BPAs exclusively to create a more energy-efficient printing process through the government. The BPAs also offer agencies lower prices than other printing contractors currently offer as well as help them identify savings through the use of more efficient printing, faxing, and copying devices, according to the GSA.

They also will offer agencies access to more cost-effective printing and faxing machines and provide services to assess the products they're already using in their printing processes. The goal is for all printers and fax machines to meet Energy Star standards, accept 100% recycled paper and 50% post-consumer content, and come preset with default settings for energy and cost savings.

The assessments also will look for ways agencies can lower cost and improve their overall environmental performance in this area, according to the GSA.

A service catalog is pivotal in moving IT from an unresponsive mass of corporate overhead to an agile business partner. In this report, we chart the new service-oriented IT landscape and provide a guide to the key components: service catalogs, cost and pricing models, and financial systems integration. Read our report now. (Free registration required.)