QSMO?! Not a hot toasty sandwich
Date: November 20, 2019
While it sounds like (and can be easily confused with) the name of a sub shop with a menu of hot sandwiches, the Financial Management Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) is serving up more than lunch.
Established by OMB Memo, four Quality Service Management Offices were set up in Treasury, GSA, HHS, and DHS to provide mission support services in Financial Management, Human Resources, Grants, and Cybersecurity, respectively.
Since the memo was released in April 2019, the pre-designated program offices have been hard at work, setting up operational and implementation plans. Each office is planning to deliver a marketplace of solutions and services and will act as a broker to help agencies plan for and select the solutions that best meet their needs.
At the Shared Services Summit on November 14, the question was asked if the QSMO is just another name for the shared services model. Representing the FM QSMO, Fiscal Service Deputy Commissioner Matt Miller explained that the marketplace will offer both federal and commercial solutions for CFOs to select from many solutions and providers, delivering standards-based solutions.
The emphasis on the QSMO model is understanding agency customer needs and giving them choice. The items on the “shelf” of the marketplace will be determined as a collaboration between industry and agency customers.
Another key point by Deputy Commissioner Miller is that defining the marketplace starts with standards since it’s hard to share things that are different. Polling questions were peppered into the presentations and provided interesting insights from the over 400 federal employees and industry professionals in the audience.
When asked “In one word, what excites you the most about the (QSMO) marketplaces?”, the top answers included collaboration, efficiency, progress, and standardization. The standards as defined through FIT and the Financial Management Standards Committee will be the basis for solution requirements.
So, while QSMO is not a hot food provider, it will deliver meaty solutions that will benefit the Federal Financial Management Community.
To find out more about FIT, visit https://fiscal.treasury.gov/fit/ FIT is part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, whose mission is to promote the financial integrity and operation efficiency of the federal government through exceptional accounting, financing, collections, payments, and shared services. To find out more about the Fiscal Service, visit fiscal.treasury.gov or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.