Open Dialogue on Improving How to Do Business with the Federal Government Ideas

The current system relies heavily on an assumption that everyone knows how to navigate the various technologies inherent in government contracting. The human element is inadequate.

Given the breadth of the complaints, perhaps it is time to create a new major panel similar to the Section 800 panel to address this issues in depth and systematically. Such a group could have the support of both the Congress and the Administration and the product of that group would be much more likely to obtain broad support, as FASA received overwhelming bi-partisan approval and resulted in significant change.

What about an organization that is dedicated to helping small companies navigate the contracting process? In our experience, once you have fought the battle to gain certification (FedRamp or ATO), there is a bigger and more expensive hurdle of getting on the GSA price list and/or finding an appropriate contracting vehicle. Most companies end up working with a contracting partner like Carasoft or mmix who take a big ...more »

If a small business has a good service or product that the federal government can use then the first two major barriers must be addressed for more participation are: 1. Cash flow for 12 -36 months to cover G&A- Fringe & Over Head depending on industry needs to be easily accessible. If a company jumps through all the hoops to become a federal contractor then to survive long enough for repeated contract awards to provide ...more »

Growing small businesses and diversifying the pool of federal contractors are important goals. However, recently, there have been several highly publicized examples of small business contractors who shortchanged workers on federal jobs. While small businesses may not be able to meet all the experiential criteria that are part of the responsibility determination, there needs to be a mechanism in place to ensure that ...more »

One possible solution to reduce the complexity associated with commercial item acquisition would be to address the burden of providing Commercial Sales Practices ("CSP") information in response to large contract solicitations (e.g. FSS, VA National Contract, DHA E-CAT). While we acknowledge that CSPs may be helpful to enable the determination of fair and reasonable pricing, the nature and type of data requested varies ...more »

Question 1: How can we make doing business with the government easier and less costly for small businesses, minority businesses, new entrants, and non-traditional government contractors? Answer 1: So far I have not encountered any costs with trying to start a business, because I am doing extension research first. I do see there are a lot of costs to get started. Question 2: If you are a small business, minority ...more »

The FAR should reflect best practices in the private sector and many state construction (15 or so) programs by requiring prime contractors to list/name primary subcontractors in low-price award procedures (like proposed in HR 1942). Since the 1984 Competition in Contracting Act, federal agencies have run away from construction project low-bid prime contract award procedures because of the claims and disputes that were ...more »

I noticed there are not a lot of different opportunities available for WOSBs across various NAICS codes. I receive alerts from FBO for my NAICS codes. However, I haven't received many that are set aside for WOSBs. There needs to be more opportunities across different NAICS codes. I know there are many NAICS codes that are eligible for WOSB set aside, but I haven't seen many contracts advertised that fall under many of ...more »

Mid-tier businesses have valuable government contracting experience and power the economy by subcontracting with small business concerns. Prohibiting these dollars from counting towards an agency’s socioeconomic goals artificially reduces the apparent government investment in such companies. As a result, SBA goals are treated with heightened importance, creating greater exclusion of sources in open competition and increasing ...more »

SBA mandates that small subcontractors be paid quickly by primes when the government pays quickly. This would extend the same requirement to small businesses that are team members on Contractor Teaming Agreements under the GSA MAS program.

The current structure for agency reporting relevant to small business utilization goals is flawed, in that it allows agencies to grossly misinterpret the intent of the these goals. Agencies are required to report dollar volumes at this time. This is an accurate representation of whether or not the dollars are going to small businesses, but it is not an accurate representation of how many small businesses are receiving ...more »