Earlier this quarter, more than 250 industry professionals – including The Refinishing Touch – took part in the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative’s Furniture Virtual Industry meeting.

Attendees were able to ask a variety of questions and recently, the FSSI posted responses on GSA Interact – an open online collaborative community that encourages networking and engagement across GSA topics, such as sustainability and small business resources.

The Q&A served as an opportunity to clarify some of the language used by the GSA and to address direct industry concerns. “Gold plating,” for example, is a term that “refers to options that are based on ‘want’ rather than ‘need’, which add unnecessary costs to customer agency requirements.” We also learned that the Commodity Team participants have shown interest and are actively cooperating to reach consensus on standards among the agencies that are participating within the FSSI Furniture Committee.

As a longstanding provider of furniture asset management solutions to the government sector, we were pleased to take part – but as a citizens and consumers, it’s valuable to know how these systems work as well. Therefore, we encourage you to read the full Q&A responses available online here.