After the recent release of a Special Item Number (SIN) for cloud products and services on IT Schedule 70, GSA is now looking to create two more SINs for targeted technologies. Specifically, these SINs will be related to health IT and cybersecurity. GSA also expanded their agreement with the Defense Health Agency (DHA) regarding health IT spending.

February 2016 was a month full of changes for GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract holders. Most schedule holders received notifications that schedule-wide solicitation refreshes were ready to be reviewed and accepted in GSA’s Mass Mod portal.

Major changes implemented by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) will be affecting several organizations in the small-business arena. On February 26, 2016, the SBA’s revised standards for business size determinations took effect, due to final rulings by the SBA as part of the agency’s comprehensive North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) review. 209 different industries could feel the effect of this change.

This spring we’ll be anxiously awaiting the release of Alliant 2 and Alliant 2 Small Business (SB). These GWACs are specific to comprehensive information technology solutions with a total estimated value of $65 trillion between FY2018 and FY2028.

Many small businesses build a federal practice by partnering with companies that act as a reseller to the government. There are enormous benefits to partnering on a reseller’s GSA Schedule as part of your government sales strategy.

Ask any government contractor what they think of partnering or teaming and they will probably murmur something close to, “It’s probably a good idea.” There are a lot of benefits to partnering and almost every government contractor understands the basic concept. However, many also have false perceptions of what it takes to form a partnership, believing it’s daunting, difficult and not a priority for their government sales strategy.