If you’re a government contractor chances are you are fully aware of the myriad registrations and systems you are required to maintain throughout the year. From annual updates to your Central Contractor Registration (CCR) and Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA) to periodic subcontractor reporting through the Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (eSRS) or opportunity searching through Federal Business Opportunities (FBO), contractors must consistently monitor several disparate systems in order to continue to partner with Uncle Sam. In a recent BLOG we profiled the FAPIIS System, which consolidated several long standing databases already in use by the procurement community in making contract award determinations. While, from an ease of use standpoint, this is a step in the right direction for Contracting Officers, little has been done to streamline activities for vendors. Well things are about to change.

While helping my clients with GSA Contractor Post Award and governement business development services, I’ve found that many have never heard of GSA’s MarkeTips Magazine before. I’d like to take a moment to highlight the magazine and show you how you can use it as a tool to advertise your products and services under a newly awarded GSA Schedule contract. What is MarkeTips?

Congress’ Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 includes an array of provisions aimed at helping small businesses gain access to capital, compete for government contracting opportunities, expand exporting opportunities and obtain other assistance to help them grow and create jobs. One of those provisions is The Small Business Teaming Pilot Program which provides grants to well-established national companies or organizations capable of training and guiding small business government contractors. This pilot program was developed in hopes of assisting undersized firms competing for large contracts. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is in charge of distributing the money and plans to award up to $5 million in grant funding as part of the program. In fiscal year 2011 the SBA can make 10 to 20 grant awards ranging from $250,000 to $500,000. The financial assistance, which can be in the form of a joint venture, or a prime and subcontractor relationship, is expected to focus on customer relations and outreach, team relations, performance measurement and quality assurance. Recipients of the grants are also charged with helping small business locate other firms to team with for larger government opportunities, identifying potential government contracts and preparing and submitting bids.

With the recent Veterans Day holiday having already passed, I have been giving extra thought to those in the service and wanted to finish up my initial blog covering the effectiveness of Executive Order 13360. To recap, Executive Order 13360 or “the 21 Gun Salute initiative” was implemented by the General Services Administration (GSA) and aimed at meeting and exceeding the 3% federal contracting goal with SDVOSBs. Here’s what I found out. Did Executive Order 13360 work? (Part 2 – The Results) On my last blog I reported that the Department of Defense only spent 1.43% on SDVOSB Prime contractors (1.35% for Subcontractors) in 2009. This was just my first search, however, and was sure I would see much better results from the rest of our federal agencies. I mean, 3% isn’t that lofty of a goal, is it? Well, here’s how the rest of the results looked (Format of the table below is Agency, 2008 SDVOSB Prime Contracting Achievement, 2009 Goal, 2009 SDVOSB Prime Contracting Achievement)

One of the most common challenges new contractors face after receiving a GSA Schedule contract is where to find new business. Often times a contractor is unsure of what agencies to market to and who is interested in their services or products. Not only can new contractors sell their products through GSA Schedules to other agencies, but they can also sell directly toGSA. In FY2010, GSA reported $16,978,003,265 dollars spent from 910,020 transactions. That’s a lot of opportunity! For FY2011, the General Services Administration has recently updated its website to include some very useful bid and opportunity listings, titled “Forecast of Contracting Opportunities.” This is a complete forecast of opportunities that GSA suspects it will need for the upcoming fiscal year (October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011), as well as any known opportunities for the following fiscal years. The opportunities you will find on this forecast are all at or above the $25,000 threshold and are anticipated awards to both large and small businesses. It is a downloadable file that you can export into Microsoft Excel. From there, you can search and filter by date of opportunity, by North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code, by location, etc. The descriptions of the opportunities include the primary NAICS code, the state where the opportunity is located, what type of product or service GSA is searching for, the award status, a procurement classification code, what type of qualifications are required, what type of contract it is, an estimated contract amount (min and max), the contracting officer in charge of the procurement, the contracting officer’s contact information, and the incumbent if there is one.

For any of you out there pursuing the new COMSATCOM SIN's (132-54 &132-55) under Schedule 70, you may have noticed a pretty lengthy requirement called the 'Information Assurance Compliance Checklist'. Its 49 pages to be exact. At first glance, the form can seem pretty daunting and difficult to fill out. I've recently spent quite a bit of time on the phone with GSA in an attempt to figure out EXACTLY what they're looking for and it's pretty clear that they're still working through the requirements of the form, trying to determine precisely how they want to see the information requested.