Back in 2010, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) tasked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to lead a government-wide effort to ensure that there were sufficient cybersecurity measures in place for each agency. These security protocols needed to be both risk-based and cost-effective in nature.

Last week, our contract support experts represented the Winvale team at the GSA’s 2016 Office of Small Business Utilization (OSBU) Spring Conference: Making it Easier to do Business with the GSA. This event is extremely beneficial for small business owners looking to acquire the right tools to succeed in the federal marketplace. It served as a great opportunity to network with contracting professionals, learn new skills and even take advantage of one-on-one counseling.

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.