GSA touts new mobile management resource

The General Services Administration launched a centralized, uniform guide to help agencies wring additional savings from their expanding portfolios of mobile services and devices.

GSA quietly posted a new Mobile Lifecycle & Expense Management (ML&EM) resource online on March 31. The site provides resources federal agencies can use in their search for wireless solutions, including a list of service providers that meet ML&EM requirements, various pathways through governmentwide acquisition contracts and other strategically valuable information.

In an April 17 blog post, Mary Davie, assistant commissioner of GSA's Office of Integrated Technology Services, said the solutions gathered under the ML&EM program can reduce agency mobile costs up to 25 percent initially and another 8 percent to 10 percent as agencies hone their mobile use. The larger the agency's mobile footprint, the larger the efficiencies and cost savings the solutions can bring, she added.

GSA has long taken this approach for both wireline and mobile assets with its Telecommunications Expense Management Services, and Jon Johnson, program manager of GSA's Managed Mobility Program, told FCW that ML&EM is intended to do the same in a more mobile-centric way. The new initiative complements the agency's growing stable of wireless management and procurement options, which include the Managed Mobility Program and the blanket purchase agreements issued a year ago under the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative.

Johnson said ML&EM can help agencies decide on the appropriate wireless services plan, optimize existing rates, identify inventory and billing errors, improve security and manage agency-issued devices.

He added that agencies also have the choice of using the tools before or after they buy services from providers.