The National Business Center (NBC) is providing assistance to 17 non-Interior clients in support of GSA's eTravel initiative. Each of the 17 agencies is included in a joint eTravel migration plan that was submitted by NBC to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) on March 31, 2004. The NBC will provide migration planning, vendor selection, contract management, implementation services, interface development to multiple financial applications, training, and production customer service support to each agency.
NBC's eTravel migration strategy is to select a single eTravel vendor and implement a common application to support all client agencies. By participating in a shared solution, clients will save time and money by sharing infrastructure, implementation, and production costs. In addition, client agencies will be able to capitalize on the NBC's extensive experience with implementing and maintaining automated reservation and travel management systems. NBC's implementation experience and support of seven agencies in various travel solutions in the past essentially becomes your small agency's experience. The combined resources of NBC and its 17 clients can ensure an eTravel solution that works for all of us. NBC's shared solution provides a mechanism for agencies to combine resources and avoid a duplication of effort. Each participating agency will finance a share of the cost of the common eTravel implementation. The actual percentage will be determined based agency size and the actual number of participating agencies. All that is required is an interagency agreement between NBC and your agency.
Agencies choosing to pursue the eTravel initiative independently will have to identify resources to accomplish the following tasks (at a minimum): developing individual migration plans and evaluation criteria, evaluating three eTravel vendors, developing eTravel implementation expertise, providing administrator training, funding interface development to their accounting system, and requesting customization and problem resolution. As an alternative to spending time, money, and resources implementing individual eTravel solutions, participating clients will leverage combined resources and NBC expertise in a single, common implementation.
NBC is continuing to work with GSA, participating agencies, and the eTravel vendors in order to evaluate product offerings. NBC will conduct substantiation workshops in May and plans to select a vendor and issue a task order by mid-July. First implementations are tentatively scheduled for October 2004.
Agencies who are looking for ways to reduce the cost of the eTravel migration process should consider participating in the NBC eTravel solution. Contact NBC for more information on our shared eTravel solution and for details on the interagency agreement process. NBC can work with your agency and address your specific travel needs in relation to eTravel, while providing the opportunity for resource savings.
For more information
Danielle Camesi
Danielle_K_Camesi@nbc.gov
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