From the beginning, the current federal IT modernization initiative has required agencies to balance the demands of their modernization requirements with the realities of the federal budget. That is why this administration has identified shared services and category management as underpinnings of its IT strategy.

The rationale is simple: by capitalizing on their common requirements and leveraging their combined buying power, agencies can achieve greater efficiencies and establish a greater performance baseline for core IT services. The challenge, now, is to make that work in practice. This event, the second in our four-part IT Enterprise Sprint, will discuss how agencies can incorporate shared services and category management into their acquisition plans.