This is a presentation given by GSA at their May 2011 Expo. 

GSA IT Schedule 70 is one of the largest and most common means by which the federal government procures information technology based goods and services.   GSA Schedule 70 offers the opportunity for Information Technology companies, including small businesses, to cut through the red tape of government acquisitions and make their products and services more readily available to any number of government agencies.  This is a long-term contract that basically pre-approves GSA Schedule 70 holders as vendors for the government purchasing marketplace. It is not a requirement for a vendor to have a GSA Schedule 70 contract in order to do business with government entities but it does help by decreasing the time it takes to make a transaction as well as cut down on the fees for both parties. 

An update to our earlier articles about A recent rule (February, 2011) from the U.S. Small Business Administration that offers preferential government contracting to Women Owned Small Businesses in 83 industries.  The Small Business Administration  has finally approved four organizations to act as Third Party Certifiers under the WOSB Program. The four organizations and contact information are:

I speak with many sales people and business developers in firms that have just been awarded a GSA contract.  The primary focus of those discussions revolves around exploiting their new listing in the GSA schedules program by enhancing their Federal marketing strategy and tactics to generate qualified leads, analyzing competitors and agencies, and related sales issues.  But often, they want and need to understand some important technical contract issues.  The question I receive most -  Who are GSA Eligible Buyers?

Last  Friday (06/24/11), the Small Business Administration released its 2010 report card on the amount of government contracts going to small business.  The annual Scorecard measures how well federal agencies achieve their small business and socio-economic prime contracting and subcontracting goals. Almost  $100 billion in government contracts went to small businesses which was 22.7% of all federal contracting dollars, just shy of the government’s goal of 23%.  Overall, the federal government got a B.  SBA gave out 13 As, 5 Bs, 4 Cs and 2 Ds to the agencies. 

GSA has recently done some soul searching to determine why so many of its vendor partners (a.k.a. GSA contractors) are failing to thrive under its GSA Schedules program and what can be done to help firms better succeed. It could not come at a more opportune time as a perfect storm of numerous firms entering the federal market are encountering outdated business assistance programs.

I am frequently contacted by firms who have received a GSA contract for providing professional services  who want to know how to go about getting an increase to their GSA pricing.  By professional services, I mean firms who hold contracts such as:

Subpart 51.1 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Contractor Use of Government Supply Sources, prescribes the policies and procedures under which federal contractors can use government supply sources, like GSA Schedule Contracts, to facilitate the completion of their contract.  Traditionally, this allowance only enabled Prime contractors to purchase certain supplies and services not requiring a statement of work if they were on a Cost Reimbursement Contract.  In 2009, GSA established a deviation to FAR 51.1 that allowed contractors to purchase from other contractors under both Cost Reimbursement and Time & Materials Contracts.

Your GSA Advantage Catalog is a Resource - Make it Work for You

A vendor’s GSA catalog is an online resource found on GSA Advantage, which is GSA’s online ecommerce system.  The GSAAdvantage! system contains GSA vendor information and enables Federal agencies to research products and pricing as well as place orders or issue RFQ’s in the system’s eBuy section. 

FedBid, the “reverse eBay” of federal contracting websites, is quickly growing into a powerful contracting tool.  Its goal, which it largely succeeds in fulfilling, is to provide federal buyers and contractors with a simple and responsive online marketplace.  Federal Agencies and Departments create a listing on FedBid.com for the specific products or simple services they need.  Companies then search those listings to find someone buying what they are selling.  If they find a match, they can enter a bid and potentially win the contract.  As you can see, “a reverse eBay” aptly describes the FedBid process, as the contracts are essentially auctioned off to the lowest qualified bidder in real time.