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.

A public opinion poll that came out last week revealed that most Americans hold members of the armed service in higher regard than any other profession or line of work. I myself am not a member of the military but my stepbrother is a service disabled veteran. He served three tours in Iraq, quickly making his was from Private to Staff Sergeant. On his third tour his armored vehicle was hit by an IED, which eventually ended his military career – but certainly not his business career. He has since rehabilitated and has considered creating a business venture with other vets from Iraq. Given the current climate of public opinion, there is a strong appeal to sell to veteran owned small businesses that have helped defend our country, particularly those operating in the federal market. Did Executive Order 13360 work? (Part 1)

The web continues to have a profound effect on our personal and professional lives. From contacting a loved one miles away, to skipping a walk to the store for a gift purchase, to organizing your business's day to day activities, our lives are continually touched and made easier by the World Wide Web – and, in particular, those solutions delivered to us and run almost entirely over the internet. Businesses especially are taking greater advantage of these web based tools and applications in an effort to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and facilitate organization-wide transparency. Such so called "cloud computing" applications and services are an area of significant growth within the IT industry - in fact, growing at a faster clip than any other type of IT spending. And don't think Uncle Sam hasn't taken notice. Last year, the Obama Administration made note of the rising trend in applications run in the "cloud" by rolling out its own government App store for Federal Agencies, www.apps.gov, with the goal of furthering propelling the Federal Government into the digital frontier. GSA, for its part, is managing the store and marketing Apps.gov as part of its "GSA eTools" library that includes both GSA Advantage! and GSA eBuy. For GSA Schedule 70 Contract holders this is significant news. The President's initiative represents a dedicated effort to modernize the Federal Government's IT systems with an approach dedicated, in part, to cloud centric solutions. The App store is the forum for these opportunities and it's only open to Schedule 70 contractors to boot!