In our blog last week, Women in Business: WOSB and EDWOSB Sole Source Advantage, we discussed the competitive advantage the WOSB and EDWOSB programs give Women-Owned Small Businesses. This week we’re going to focus on who and how you should be marketing to the federal government. An agencies past performance can be a good indicator of future needs, so we will also take a look at some agencies’ spending patterns related to the Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs) and Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Businesses (EDWOSBs) programs.

As we celebrate Women’s History Month we wanted to take a moment to highlight one of the biggest advantages Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs) and Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Businesses (EDWOSBs) have in federal government contracting: Sole Sourcing.

If women’s history in labor and business is any example of past entrepreneurial challenges that have been overcome, then 2017 should expect nothing less than great advances by women-owned businesses creating more opportunities for themselves. Government contractors recognize the benefits of having a small business designation and while we are only in the third month of the year, we are already seeing a spike in interest for companies to become registered as WOSB.

THE TIME IS NOW. You may or may not be aware that by submitting a proposal for a GSA Schedule 70 contract with the new GSA Cyber Security SINs (Penetration Testing, Incident Response, Cyber Hunt, and Risk & Vulnerability Assessments) it will take you on average 45 days to be awarded a schedule. In the commercial world this may sound like an ordinary time to award, but since we are dealing with the US Government, this is extremely expedited. The average time-to-award for a GSA Schedule 70 proposal including other SINs under the GSA’s IT Schedule 70 is 4-6 months.

President Trump has made it no secret that he plans to spend a lot improving the nation’s infrastructure. With the transfer of powers completed and the new administration officially in place, changes to how the Government approaches procurement and focus on new/different initiatives will follow. While the details are still being parsed, we can assume that this will include everything from the proposed border wall in addition to repairing and building new transportation, utilities, and structures as well as changes to how the Government approaches procurement. But what are some things that you should be thinking of to stay proactive? Let’s take a deeper look at the top 3 trends we expect to see over the coming years.

On November 18th The General Services Administration (GSA) announced that the Schedule 70 solicitation has been updated to incorporate the Transactional Data Reporting pilot (TDR). This pilot program will affect thousands of Schedule 70 contractors under the following SINs: 132-8, 132-32, 132-33, 132-34, 132-54, and 132-55. For current Schedule 70 holders who have one of the impacted SINs it is important to note that contractors participation in this mass mod is optional. If you choose to decline the mod, you will opt out of the TDR pilot and continue with the Most Favored Customer (MFC) and Price Reduction Clause (PRC) System until it becomes a more formal requirement.