The Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (APTAC) reports that businesses, nationwide, won 73,000 government contracts worth $12 billion, thanks to the assistance provided by the network of procurement technical assistance centers (PTACs). Small businesses won 88% of these contracts.
There are 300 PTAC offices across the country, plus in Guam and Puerto Rico, and each one is supported by a local host organization that provides funds matching the support granted by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). APTAC estimates that the return-on-investment is $344 for every federal dollar invested in the PTAC program.
Through the free or low-cost assistance provided by PTACs:
- 57,000 businesses – located in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico – were educated in the past year through one-on-one counseling sessions, electronic tools, and training seminars on how to do business with the government.
- The equipment and supply needs of our country’s warfighters are supported – and the nation’s industrial base is boosted – through the influx of businesses seeking to compete for government contracts.
- Help is targeted toward small businesses, especially veteran-owned businesses, women and minority entrepreneurs, and businesses located in economically depressed HUBZones.
PTACs contribute not only to the success of small businesses, they also help government agencies and large businesses. For example, PTACs:
- Support initiatives by the Department of Veterans Affairs to make more veteran-owned firms “procurement ready.”
- Boost vendor registrations in the General Services Administration’s System for Award Management (SAM).
- Show businesses how to use DLA’s Internet Bid Board System (DIBBS), radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging and unique identification (UID) marking.
- Increase qualified sources, competition and create better value for the military, agencies and American taxpayers.
- Stimulate local economic activity by helping businesses across the country navigate federal, state and local government contracting processes.
- Educate businesses on how to meet stringent government standards and complex contract requirements.
- Help large government contractors identify qualified subcontractors and suppliers to address their small business subcontracting requirements.
In Georgia, the PTAC is known as the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC). In 2015 alone, GTPAC:
- Served 2,568 businesses across the state, providing representatives of these firms counseling, instruction, and bid opportunities.
- Sponsored 169 seminars and webinars, and participated in 52 events state-wide where more than 6,112 business people received instruction on how to effectively compete for government contracts.
- Conducted 8,737 counseling sessions with small businesses as well as 368 counseling sessions with large businesses.
- Assisted clients in winning 4,526 government prime contracts and 764 subcontracts worth a total of $1.2 billion.
For more information about APTAC and the national network of PTACs, visit www.aptac-us.org. For more information about GTPAC, including how to enroll as a client, please visit www.gtpac.org.
To see a fact sheet on APTAC, click on this link: PTAC Fact Sheet – May 2016.
To see a fact sheet on GTPAC, click on this link: GTPAC Fact Sheet – April 2016
