“Victory in Procurement: Marketing to the Government” was co-sponsored by American Express OPEN and The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech.

The workshop was led by Denise Rodriguez-Lopez, an American Express OPEN Advisor on Government Contracting. She provided practical guidance to participants on how to put together both a two-minute elevator speech as well as a written Capabilities Statement. When put to use, both of these marketing techniques are designed to effectively convey an entrepreneur’s experience and expertise. Attendees also received a sample Capabilities Statement, written instructions for constructing an elevator speech, and worksheets for creating a marketing strategy.

A panel, consisting of successful business leaders and government decision-makers, provided workshop attendees with insights into how the government contracting process works. The panelists included Tina Baker, president and CEO of the Cadence Group; Lesa Adeboyé, CEO and founder of The Alliance Group, Inc.; JoAnn Braxton, Business Development Specialist with the Georgia District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration; and Gwen Miles, Small Business Specialist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The panelists interacted with the audience, providing feedback on marketing techniques that work and crtitiques of individual elevator speeches that were crafted by workshop participants.

Information also was provided to participants on the services provided by the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center and the professional education courses offered by The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech.

In addition to networking with peers and GSA subject matter experts, attendees will also have the opportunity to participate in the following breakout sessions:

• Advanced Automated Acquisition Program (AAAP)
• Small Business Requirements & Opportunities
• Lessor Duties
• Property Management
• Green Leasing

As there is limited seating and conference room availability, and pre-registration is required in order to attend Industry Day.

The exact location of this event is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Building (1st Floor), Atlanta Conference Rooms 1 – 3, 77 Forsyth Street, Atlanta, GA 30303. Visitors must enter the meeting location at the Forsyth Street Entrance. Attendees/visitors must bring photo identification and provide that identification to the security guard before entering the Martin L. King, Jr Federal Building. Visitors may not to bring weapons of any kind to this Federal Building: Pocket knives, box cutters, fingernail files, glass containers, guns, etc. will be confiscated and donated to a charity.

To see the agenda, click here.

The Industry Day will be held from 7:30 am until 4:35 pm on June 13, 2012.  Go to this website to register:  http://gsa.gov/portal/content/132863.

“Whereas we focused last year on the misconceptions on the part of federal agencies, we want to continue the discussion by addressing in this memorandum the misconceptions that may be held by some in the vendor community,” wrote Lesley Field, acting administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement, in a May 7 memo to chief acquisition officers, senior procurement officers and chief information officers.

Keep reading this article at http://www.govexec.com//contracting/2012/05/omb-releases-second-mythbusting-memo-improve-communication-contractors/55616/?oref=govexec_today_nl.

Over a period of the next several years, SAM will consolidate nine government databases.

What this means to vendors:

Your existing CCR and ORCA registrations are scheduled to be automatically transferred to SAM on May 29th.

While GSA hopes for a smooth transition to the new SAM system, there likely will be some hiccups.  During the transition, difficulties can be expected with new registrations and re-registrations.  Since CCR contains over 600,000 active registrants, annual re-registrations alone average about 2,000 per business day. Even a small glitch could backlog the help desk, and with 2,000 daily updates, a backlog of problems has the potential to grow very quickly.

What you should do:

All clients of the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center – who are already registered in CCR – are encouraged to check the expiration date of your current CCR and ORCA registrations.  If either of your registrations are scheduled to expire in the next few months (May, June, July), we advise you to renew your registrations now.

Taking care of your registration renewal now will allow you to avoid getting caught-up in the rush of renewals and new registrations that are sure to occur in late May and in the months of June and July.

To check your CCR expiration date, just go to https://www.bpn.gov/ccr,  click on “CCR Search” near the top of the screen, and enter your DUNS number or CAGE code to review your registration.  You can check your ORCA registration by going to https://orca.bpn.gov/ and entering your DUNS number.   If you are due to renew either of these registration systems any time between now and the end of the year, we urge you log in and update your CCR and ORCA registration before the end of this month (May 2012).  Your updated registrations will be good for one year.

Taking action now will assure that you will not have a critical need to update your records until well after any system transition problems are solved.

If you have questions, or need assistance, please contact your GTPAC Counselor.  You can find our contact information at http://gtpac.org/team-directory.

A fact sheet on the new SAM system can be downloaded here: SAM Flyer 2012

Your company can check into being part of the action by attending this Forum during the Manufacturing Innovations 2012 convention in Orlando, Florida. The Forum will address rail industry product needs, and the requirements and considerations of manufacturers, both traditional rail and non-traditional.

Admission to the Forum is free for the first 150 to register — use the discount registration code RAIL. To access the one-on-one business meetings, you must provide your DUNS number. After these first 150, registration will cost $300.

The day-long event features a keynote address, discussion panels, one-on-one meetings with OEMs, and a networking reception. To date, the following OEMs/Tier Ones have confirmed attendance: Bombardier, ElectroMotive Diesel, Talgo, Knorr Brake Corp, and Wabtec. Other major manufacturers are expected to attend.

The rail supply chain needs you. Don’t miss out on this chance to discover how you can innovate, expand, and profit from an industry that is building the future of American rail transportation.

See this flyer for additional information on the Forum, or click here if you want to learn more about the full 5 day Manufacturing Innovation 2012 conference.

The Next Generation Rail Supply Chain Forum is a great value for companies interested in opportunities in the rail industry because you will have the opportunity to speak with contract purchasing agents across the industry.

Although he provided few concrete details about OASIS, he did unveil its timetable for the first time.

Keep reading this article at: http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/04/26/oasis-update.aspx?s=wtdaily_270412.

In partnership with American Express OPEN, the Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech is proud to offer a three-hour workshop entitled “Victory in Procurement: Marketing to the Federal Government.”

Designed for small business owners, this event will teach you how to effectively pitch your business to the government and provide:

• Insights into how to select which government agencies to target and how to get meetings with them,
• Tips and tactics for improving your elevator pitch and capabilities statement,
• Sample elevator pitches and capabilities statements,
• Advice from a panel of government buyers and successful small business owners,
• Interactive, roll-up-your-sleeves round-table exercises where you’ll hone your new-found skills.

The event will be held on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at the Tech Square Research Building (TSRB), located at 85 Fifth St., NW, Atlanta, GA 30308. The workshop will take place from 9:00 am until 12 noon.

Pre-registration is required. Click here to pre-register. Due to space limitations, walk-ins on the day of the event will not be allowed.

A flyer describing this event can be downloaded by clicking here.

A combination of practical training sessions, an expo, and one-on-one business meetings, VETS 2012 is intended to create opportunities for future and currect Veteran business owners to make meaningful connections with potential mentors, partners, clients and each other.

Complete details may be found at: http://www.veterantrainingsymposium.com/

An April 25 cross-industry panel of contracting experts agreed that the new DFARS is the most comprehensive change in federal contracting in several years.

But they centered their attention on assessing the new withholding clause, which calls for withholding a percentage of the contract payment if the Defense Contracting Management Agency finds “significant deficiencies” in any of six business systems cited in the new rule.

Timothy Callahan, executive director for contracts at DCMA, said the old rule had a variety of regulations, no consistent language in determining whether a contractor’s work was adequate or inadequate, and what and how corrective actions were to be taken.

“Under the way we were operating if a contractor had a deficiency with a business system, they put forward an adequate corrective action plan; that submittal of an adequate action plan oftentimes was sufficient to change the status from a disapproved system to an approved system,” Callahan said.

“And there really wasn’t the follow-through on either the contractor’s part or our oversight to ensure that that corrective action plan was put into place,” he added.

The new DFARS business system clause normally does not apply to small businesses, competitive fixed price contracts or contracts less than $7.5 million, he said, adding that the agency will issue a withhold assessment on contracts valued at more than $50 million.

Callahan said DCMA now will use a four-phase program to determine if any of six contract business systems are judged to contain “significant deficiencies.”

“If it’s one business system, the withhold [amount] is 5 percent. If it’s two or more business systems that are being disapproved, the maximum is 10 percent,” he said.

“The withholds are against the financing arrangements of the contract,” Callahan explained, including progress payments, performance-based payments and interim cost vouchers.

The contractor then has 45 days to turn in its corrective action plan.

“If it’s an adequate corrective action plan the withhold will be reduced by 2 percent,” Callahan said. “We’re trying to minimize the hurt but still keep the pressure on to get this corrective action implemented.”

When the contractor notifies the government of the implementation, the government has 90 days to validate that corrective action has indeed occurred and that the deficiencies have been corrected.

“If we don’t get out there within 90 days, it’s another automatic reduction in the withhold [penalty] of 50 percent,” he said.

Participants at the Compusearch-sponsored panel “Contracting in a Time of Change” agreed there was a definite need for a new DFARs rule.

But Robert Burton, partner at Venable law firm and former deputy administrator in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, called the business system clause draconian and hard to implement.

Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, said there is a lot of mythology surrounding the rule.

However, he praised DFARS for providing “contractor engagement and response at every opportunity. So it’s really moved to a compliance rule rather than a withholding rule.”

Chvotkin said the attributes in each of the six business systems are more clearly defined now than they were early on in the drafting process “But there’s still a lot of ambiguity and a lot of room for interpretation,” he said.

Addressing the ambiguity and need for interpretation, Chvotkin offered several steps contractors need to take even before winning a contract affected by the rule.

He said contractors should always document their own business systems, be aware proactively of the contract clauses and the risks inherent in DFARS.

Robin Schulze, director of the Government Contractor Advisory Services at accountants Baker Tilly Virchow Krause LLP, said she believed the strength of the new DFARS was its peer review requirement.

But she said, “I believe that when you get the initial determination [of a deficiency] if you were able, in your response to that, provide an action plan you could start at 2 percent [withhold] instead of the 5 percent. And the same thing should be true if you voluntarily disclose a deficiency that you’ve identified and have already started working of it.”

Defending the clause and the remediation process, Callahan suggested that if a contractor knows there is a problem and takes corrective action right away, “we can start out with a withhold of 2 percent, it doesn’t have to be 5 percent,” he added.

“We would like this to be a collaborative operation,’ Callahan said, “where we’re communicating as we go along.”

Hundreds of HUBZone-certified small business owners, federal officials, prime contractor representatives, and others interested in the HUBZone Program are expected to attend the annual event.

Match-Making Sessions, one-on-one meetings between HUBZone contractors and almost 40 federal agencies and prime contractors, will take place Wednesday, September 5.

Educational sessions will take place September 6-7 and will include an update on the HUBZone Program and a variety of other topics impacting small business contracting.

For more information about the conference, including photos from the 2011 conference, visit the Conference website.