Browse Definitions :
Definition

governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC)

A governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC) is a contract between a commercial IT service or product vendor and the U.S. government that consolidates the procurement of IT solutions across multiple federal agencies.  A GWAC is a multiple-award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (MA/IDIQ) contract, meaning that federal agencies can purchase an unlimited number of products or service hours under a single GWAC during a specified period of time.

By centralizing the procurement of IT products and services, GWACs allow agencies to take advantage of the government’s immense buying power, which can help lower prices. Agencies place task orders against an existing GWAC for the products and services they wish to purchase. This can be done through agency staff or via the GSA’s Assisted Acquisition Services Division. Because the contract is already established, this method is supposed to save agencies time and money.   

Agencies are required to justify new GWACs in order to reduce the number of contracts issued. There are currently 10 GWACs managed by three agencies – NASA, GSA and the National Institute of Health.

Read more:

The official GSA government website

OMB: Agencies will need to justify creating their own contracts

This was last updated in March 2011
Networking
  • remote infrastructure management

    Remote infrastructure management, or RIM, is a comprehensive approach to handling and overseeing an organization's IT ...

  • port address translation (PAT)

    Port address translation (PAT) is a type of network address translation (NAT) that maps a network's private internal IPv4 ...

  • network fabric

    'Network fabric' is a general term used to describe underlying data network infrastructure as a whole.

Security
  • DNS over HTTPS (DoH)

    DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a relatively new protocol that encrypts domain name system traffic by passing DNS queries through a ...

  • governance, risk and compliance (GRC)

    Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) refers to an organization's strategy for handling the interdependencies among the following...

  • total risk

    Total risk is an assessment that identifies all the risk factors associated with pursuing a specific course of action.

CIO
  • enterprise IT (enterprise-class IT)

    Enterprise-class IT (also known as enterprise-grade, or enterprise IT) is hardware, software and other IT services designed to ...

  • microtargeting

    Microtargeting (also called micro-niche targeting) is a marketing strategy that uses consumer data and demographics to identify ...

  • business process

    A business process is an activity or set of activities that accomplish a specific organizational goal. Business processes should ...

HRSoftware
  • employee onboarding and offboarding

    Employee onboarding involves all the steps needed to get a new employee successfully deployed and productive, while offboarding ...

  • skill-based learning

    Skill-based learning develops students through hands-on practice and real-world application.

  • gamification

    Gamification is a strategy that integrates entertaining and immersive gaming elements into nongame contexts to enhance engagement...

Customer Experience
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365

    Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based portfolio of business applications from Microsoft that are designed to help organizations improve ...

  • Salesforce Commerce Cloud

    Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based suite of products that enable e-commerce businesses to set up e-commerce sites, drive ...

  • Salesforce DX

    Salesforce DX, or SFDX, is a set of software development tools that lets developers build, test and ship many kinds of ...

Close