Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

Podcast: The state of small business contracting

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This week Ken Dodds, government contracting industry expert at Live Oak Bank, and David Black, partner and co-chair of Holland & Knight’s Government Contracts Group, joined The Federal News Network’s Off the Shelf  podcast for a wide ranging discussion on the state of federal small business contracting.

Dodds and Black took a look at the government’s performance drivers in meeting small business prime contract goals.

They also provided key insights on the state of the federal small business market what small businesses need to know about category management, Best-In-Class contracts, and interagency contracting.

Dodds and Black also shared insights on key regulatory and oversight trends for small business subcontracting plans and what it means for both small and large businesses, and took a look at trends in mergers and acquisitions and the growing criticality of supply chain risk management and what it all means for the federal market.

Listen to the Podcast at:  Federal News Network

Agencies meet small business contracting goals

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Agencies fulfilling their obligations for awarding contracts to small businesses broke a record with $120 billion in awards in fiscal 2018, the Small Business Administration announced on Tuesday.

Governmentwide for the sixth straight year, agencies met their goal of 25% for qualified small-business procurements, though fell short in the subgroups of women-owned businesses and Historically Underutilized Business Zones, or HUBZones.

The overall government rating was an A, and eight agencies received an A+ on the annual scorecard, SBA said.  The $120 billion total marked an increase of $15 billion over last year.

“Through these businesses, we strengthen the economy, and support the American workforce in the process,” said Acting Administrator Chris Pilkerton.  “The federal prime and subcontract awarded to small businesses in fiscal 2018 equate to more than one million jobs created.  Every contract that gets in the hands of a small business is a win-win for our nation, the entrepreneurs, their employees and the communities they support all across the country.”

Continue reading at:  GovExec

Agencies improved on small business goals, but can do more

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Federal agencies improved on their commitment to award contracts to small businesses in 2018, though they still fell behind in goals for contract awards to women-owned small businesses, according to the Small Business Administration’s procurement scorecards released June 25.

The government as a whole received an “A” for 2018 — meaning that it met or exceeded 100 percent of the goals set for small business contracting that year — a grade that it has maintained for the past five years.

The Departments of Education, Commerce and the Treasury led the pack of 24 agencies that were evaluated, each earning an A+ and meeting over 130 percent of the established goals for small business contract awards.

Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management, Department of Health and Human Services, the Agency for International Development and the National Science Foundation failed to meet their small business contract goals, with NSF achieving the lowest score at just over 85 percent of their goal.

But despite the overall successes for small business contract awards, some categories of small businesses failed to meet governmentwide metrics.

Continue Reading at:  Federal Times

Senate highlights decline in number of small businesses getting federal contracts

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Recently, a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship called for increased small business participation in federal contracts during a hearing on the SBA’s contracting programs.  Senator Ben Cardin based his concern on a recent report showing that the number of small businesses with federal contracts was at a 10-year low.

The report found that federal agencies had awarded contracts to 32 percent fewer small businesses in 2018 versus 2009.  In contrast, the number of large contractors receiving awards fell only 4% during the same time frame.

The Senator’s take on this report was that, “while contracts are getting bigger and bigger, we are creating an insular club where fewer and fewer businesses successfully compete for government contracts.”  He added, “[t]hat’s contrary to what these set-asides and programs are all about, which is encouraging new small businesses that can bring innovation and job growth to our economy and help our nation.”

Sen. Cardin also noted that, while federal agencies are meeting their goal of spending 23 percent of contracts on small businesses, “the data shows that we have a shrinking base of contractors rather than an expanding base of contractors.”

In other words, fewer small businesses are receiving the benefit of those set asides.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon

Small business goals are math mystery

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Here’s the bottom line.

The only way to make sense of the top graphic that shows small business goal achievement for FY17 as compared to the bottom graphic showing small business obligations for FY17 (Source: FPDS-NG) is through the double and triple-dip counting of socioeconomic dollars and the counting of dollars that were not set-aside for, but won, by small business concerns.

 

If someone can prove to me otherwise, I would happily issue an apology and retraction for teeing up this same conversation every year the government claims to have met its goals for awarding prime contracts to small businesses.

Keep reading this commentary om Linkedin by Guy Timberlake at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/small-business-goals-math-mystery-zoinks-guy-timberlake/

DoD must work harder to include small business contractors, audit says

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An audit of two Army Contracting Command centers in Redstone, Alabama and Warren, Michigan, revealed The Department of Defense (DoD) must increase its efforts in order to meet small business subcontracting goals.

The DoD Inspector General Audit was carried out in three different branches. One audit was performed on the Army, and two each on the Marine Corps and the Air Force. According to the audit, small businesses may have lost opportunities because protocols were not followed which could have encouraged more small businesses to be part of the federal marketplace.

Small businesses have been specifically included in the federal contract bidding process to both support and encourage growth in communities across the country. Head of the House Small Business Committee U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) announced in Nov. 2017 his desire to raise the federal government’s contracting goal for small businesses to 25 percent, a two percent increase from the current 23 percent target for contracts to be awarded to small businesses today.

Keep reading this article at: https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/05/defense-contracts-for-small-businesses.html

Fort Benning to hold small business open house on May 24th

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Fort Benning, Georgia, Mission and Installation Contracting Command (MICC) invites small businesses to attend an Acquisition Forecast Open House on Thursday, May 24, 2018.

Representatives from various Fort Benning activities, including MICC officials, will be on hand to provide their forecast of various contracting opportunities for 2018 and into the future.

MICC-Fort Rucker will also provide its forecast of acquisitions at Fort Rucker, Alabama, for the fiscal year and into the future.

Date: Thursday, May 24, 2018

Time:

  • Forecast Open House – 9:00am to 12:00pm
  • Event Sign-In: 30 minutes prior

Free to attend, but pre-registration is required – Complete the registration form available here: Updated Registration_Form_-May_2018_- Ft Benning Ft Rucker MICC – Acquis…

Location: McGinnis-Wickham Hall, Room West 105, 1 Karker Street (Building 4), Fort Benning, GA 31905

No fee to attend, but PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED!

RECOMMENDATION: Due to the heightened security on Fort Benning please arrive approximately one hour prior to the event.  NOTE: It is against Fort Benning Installation policy to use cellular phones that are not hands free. Violations may result in a traffic fine.

 

GSA holding small business networking session Feb. 8th in Savannah

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The General Services Administration’s Office of Small Business Utilization and Hoar Construction LLC are holding a networking session for small businesses on Feb. 8, 2018 in Savannah, Georgia.

Background

On Sept. 28, 2017, GSA awarded a contract in the amount of $22,819,862 to Hoar Construction of Birmingham, Alabama to design and build the new Tomochichi Courthouse Annex in Savannah.  Since Hoar is not a small businesses, the firm is required to develop an acceptable small business subcontracting plan in accordance with FAR 19.7.  The event being planned on Feb. 8th is designed to facilitate small business participation in the project.

The scope of design/build contract includes: design/construction documents and construction work, consisting of all labor, equipment, and materials for a complete build-out.  The project includes space for one bankruptcy courtroom and chambers, the bankruptcy clerk, and space for the U.S. Probation Office.  The total space requirement is approximately 35,000 square feet of office space and 11,000 square feet of parking for 25 cars,  for a total of 46,000 gross square feet, available for personnel, furnishings and equipment, with occupancy planned for the year 2020.  The newly constructed Courthouse Annex will be located on GSA-owned property, on a site between Barnard Street, West Your Street, Whitaker Street, and West State Street in Savannah.

Networking Event

Prospective attendees at the small business networking event are to register their company with the GSA Contacting Officer listed below via email.  Due to space availability, the GSA asks that no more than two (2) persons per firm be represented.  Call-in reservations will not be accepted.  The networking session is intended to review the scope of the project, review the project site, and conduct a GSA Small Business Networking forum among attendees.

Contact information: Swindale Rhodes, Contracting Officer, Email: swindale.rhodes@gsa.gov

Date and Time: February 8, 2018, 1:30 pm

Location of Event: 124 Barnard Street, J.G. Lowe “B” Building, 3rd Floor, Savannah, GA 31401

Small business activist wins interim victory against Pentagon, Sikorsky

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For four years, the small but vocal American Small Business League has argued that large federal contractors mislead agencies and the public by overstating their use of small businesses as subcontractors to meet statutory goals.

In U.S. District Court in San Francisco last Friday, attorneys for the advocacy group led by Lloyd Chapman and based in Petaluma, Calif., successfully pried out the previously non-public names of suppliers and other subcontractors used by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.

The helicopter maker had joined with the Defense and Justice departments in seeking to withhold such information as proprietary when submitted to the Pentagon under its 27-year-old Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program, designed to measure corporate potential for increasing small business opportunities in subcontracting.

Small business booster Chapman has long challenged the Pentagon’s program as nonproductive and oriented mostly toward obfuscating the degree to which large contractors win defense business intended for smaller ones.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2017/11/small-business-activist-wins-interim-victory-against-pentagon-sikorsky/142611 

Number of small business prime contractors down by 25 percent since 2010

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Federal agencies met the governmentwide small business goal for the fourth straight year in fiscal 2016. Last year also saw a $9 billion increase in the total of prime contracts going to small firms.

What these numbers aren’t showing, and what should really worry the Small Business Administration and the broader contracting community, is the number of small businesses winning prime contracts is dramatically down.

Deltek, the market research firm, analyzed the data and found a 25 percent decrease in the number of small business prime contractors since 2010.

“There are fewer small businesses that are engaging as a prime and that is the same pattern across large businesses,” said Kevin Plexico, the vice president of information solutions at Deltek, during the FedFocus 2018 event in Vienna, Virginia on Oct. 10. “The dollars are holding steady but the number of prime participants is declining.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2017/10/number-of-small-business-prime-contractors-down-by-25-percent-since-2010/

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