Rockville, MD - November 19, 2020 - Today, the NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) announced that all three NITAAC Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) have maintained Best in Class (BIC) status after successful completion of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Annual Review. The status of a BIC contract is reviewed annually to ensure solution providers continue to meet the five key requirement areas indicated by the OMB.

The designation renewal was achieved after undergoing an extensive review process led by Category Managers, solution owners and the Government-Wide Category Management Program Management Office. The foundation of the review was a summary of key metrics and a narrative detailing how each solution supports Category Management principles, in general, and their solution's operational objectives.

“NITAAC is pleased to have successfully completed the OMB Annual Review,” said Brian Goodger, NITAAC Acting Director. “The re-designation of all three of our GWACs as Best in Class is a testament to the quality of our contract holders, contracting officers, customer service and overall team,” said Goodger.

BIC, part of the federal government’s category management initiative, is a government-wide designation for acquisition solutions that can be used by multiple agencies and that satisfy key criteria defined by OMB. A BIC designation means that a vehicle is based on mature acquisition processes that will help agencies get more value out of their spending.

The goal of BIC is to highlight contracts that consistently deliver strong results. By relying on contracts with good track records, agencies—and the federal government as a whole—can raise the baseline for the quality of acquisitions.  The more agencies rely on contracts with good track records, the more benefits they will see, such as higher volume discounts, reduced administrative costs and contract duplication, and the greater use of buying data to make informed decisions.

To learn more about NITAAC’s three Best in Class GWACs, visit nitaac.nih.gov.

About NITAAC:

The NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) is housed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and is a full-service acquisition program that has been designated a federal Executive Agent, authorized by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to administer three Best in Class (BIC) Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) for information technology (IT) acquisitions. CIO-SP3, CIO-SP3 Small Business and CIO-CS can be used by any federal civilian or Department of Defense (DoD) agency to acquire information technology services, solutions and commodities from pre-qualified vendors at lower than open market prices in less time than going the traditional full and open route. NITAAC offers a full-service Assisted Acquisition program and is one of three OMB mandatory sources for laptop and desktop buys through our Government-wide Strategic Solutions (GSS) program. For more information, visit nitaac.nih.gov.