The General Services Administration has released a memorandum approving a class deviation to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, Part 10 to update market research rules as part of efforts to provide acquisition teams with more flexibility in their research processes.
GSA said Thursday the class deviation is effective immediately and supports an executive order signed in mid-April, which directs the government to amend FAR to streamline the federal procurement process and remove barriers to doing business with the government.
The FAR reform, also known as the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul, or RFO, initiative, aims to eliminate non-statutory language, align with the new FAR framework and preserve essential governmentwide acquisition standards, among others.
Table of Contents
Market Research Technique Flexibility
Under the class deviation, the FAR no longer lists specific market research methods or considerations that must be used.
Acquisition teams at agencies have the flexibility to select the market research technique that best meets their needs. They might conduct an expert panel or a reverse industry day, providing industry experts with an opportunity to share commercial practices, insights and experiences with the acquisition team.
According to the memo, acquisition professionals can apply market research concepts to procurements of any size.
The class deviation also eliminates requirements for disaster relief purchasing.
Retained Statutory Requirements
The document lists the statutory requirements that were retained in the RFO FAR part 10 model deviation, including those that cover planning and solicitation requirements and effective communication between government and industry.
According to the memo, acquisition professionals must still comply with the Competition in Contracting Act.
Subparts “10.001 Policy” and “10.002 Procedures” have been combined and streamlined to eliminate duplicative and discretionary guidance.
GSA Senior Procurement Executive Jeffrey Koses issued and signed the memo.
Related Articles
Gregory Barbaccia, federal chief information officer and a 2025 Wash100 awardee, has shared his insights on how the federal government should advance digital transformation. “I notice a lot of the government considers itself to be ‘digital,’ but in reality, we’ve only digitized, not transformed. Sure we went 0-1, but that should have just been the beginning,” Barbaccia wrote in a LinkedIn post. He noted the lack of automation and that workflows remain unchanged despite the replacement of paper ledgers with spreadsheets. “Files are shared over email instead of through real-time collaboration tools,” he added. Advancing Digital Transformation in Federal Government
The Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules that seek to eliminate unnecessary paperwork and address regulatory barriers to the ground-station-as-a-service, or GSaaS, business model as part of efforts to drive innovation in the U.S. space economy. FCC said Thursday the new rules establish a process for ground station operators to secure a baseline license without first identifying a satellite point of communication. A simple FCC notification will be required for each new point of communication. According to FCC, the change would eliminate nearly half of earth station modification applications. “Making the smallest change to a satellite system or earth
The General Services Administration has announced a OneGov agreement with Amazon Web Services that will provide up to $1 billion in direct incentive credits to federal civilian agencies. According to GSA, the direct incentive credits, aggregated across the agencies, will include savings on core AWS cloud services through AWS credits, infrastructure and application technologies modernization through AWS modernization credits, access to AWS training and certification through training credits and a streamlined engagement model with greater savings for direct contracts through direct partnerships. Advancing America’s AI Leadership The agreement is expected to accelerate large-scale IT transformation and boost AI innovation across