small business | The Contracting Education Academy

October 7, 2020 By cs

10 tantalizing topics testing procurement in the new fiscal year

Change is in the air.

The leaves are beginning to fall to the ground, the morning air is turning crisp, the days are getting shorter — all signaling that we are approaching the end of the government fiscal year.

The beginning of a new fiscal year provides an opportunity for reflection, during which, we can look ahead at the issues and questions that likely will shape procurement over the coming year.

With that in mind, here are 10 topics that surely will be of interest across the procurement stakeholder community.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2020/09/10-tantalizing-topics-testing-procurement-in-the-new-fiscal-year/

October 6, 2020 By cs

IG finds ‘significant inaccuracies’ in Federal Acquisition Service’s reporting of small business contracts

This resulted from issues with the GSA-managed federal procurement data system.

There have been “significant inaccuracies” in the Federal Acquisition Service’s reporting of small business contracts, a watchdog reported earlier this week.

The General Service Administration inspector general has issued a report that looked at the data GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service entered into the Federal Procurement Data System – Next Generation, which is managed by GSA. The Small Business Administration uses that system to assess if the federal government achieves its overall annual goal of awarding 23% of contracts to small businesses. Based on its review of Federal Acquisition Service procurements from fiscal 2016 and 2017 (that totaled $3.7 billion), the IG identified issues that led to overstating of small businesses procurements.

“We found that FAS’s reporting of small business procurements contained significant inaccuracies. We identified $89 million in procurements erroneously recorded as small business in [the Federal Procurement Data System–Next Generation],” said the IG. “In addition, FAS’ small business procurement reporting does not identify the extent of the work performed by large businesses. We found approximately $120 million of small business procurements in which large businesses performed a portion of the work.”

The IG reviewed the agency’s contracting data and internal policies as well as interviewed GSA officials and small business contractors, for its audit that was conducted from June 2018 to June 2019. While the report was about FAS, the IG found the issues were, in some ways, out the agency’s control.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2020/09/ig-finds-significant-inaccuracies-federal-acquisition-services-reporting-small-business-contracts/168602/

September 1, 2020 By cs

GSA imagines new small business GWAC

The General Services Administration gave the public a look at its next step in developing the agency’s new small business governmentwide contracting (GWAC) vehicle that will eventually replace the canceled Alliant 2 Small Business contract.

The new vehicle will emphasize Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) and woman-owned small business set-asides, streamlined pricing and contract submission processes, as well as a source for emerging artificial intelligence, machine learning, as-a-service offerings, cloud and edge computing technologies, as well as cybersecurity technology, according to GSA officials.

In an Aug. 27 webcast, GSA small business and IT category officials gave a loose outline of how they see the agency’s next-generation small business contract will develop in the coming months. They asked for industry input on how to maximize technologies, processes and ease-of-use for the new GWAC.

The agency anticipates issuing a draft solicitation “by the end of the year,” said Lee Tittle, program lead for small business GWACs in GSA’s Office of IT Category (OITC). To accommodate industry input and disseminate information on the effort, GSA opened a new category on its Interact online community.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2020/08/27/rockwell-gsa-new-gwac-smal-biz.aspx

August 25, 2020 By cs

4 lessons from SBA’s $30 million ‘Certify’ platform debacle

Let me know if you’ve heard this one before: An agency hires “experts” to develop an application, spends tens of millions of dollars and the effort falls flat.

This easily could be the story to focus on with Small Business Administration’s Certify.SBA.gov project.

A recent agency inspector general report found the agency brought in U.S. Digital Service experts, spent upwards of $30 million over the last five years to develop the platform only for most of the effort to go to scrap and forcing SBA to basically start over again.

Instead this is a story about perseverance. It’s a story about lessons learned that every agency should keep in mind. And this is a story that offers an inside view into why federal projects do fail and how simple steps could change the direction of any IT project.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/08/4-lessons-from-sbas-30m-certify-platform-debacle/

August 17, 2020 By cs

Agencies exceed SBA’s women-owned small business contracting goal after years of falling short

Small businesses have a big stake in the federal marketplace, and the Small Business Administration sets a high bar for the rest of the federal government to do business with them.

*Click on image above to see complete Small Business Scorecard.*

Agencies met many of those standards last year, according to SBA’s annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard, awarding nearly $133 billion in small-business prime contracts and exceeding SBA’s goal to have 5% of prime contracts go to women-owned small businesses.

This marks only the second year that agencies met or exceeded the women-owned small business contracting goal since SBA set that benchmark, although agencies have fallen just shy of the governmentwide goal in recent years.

Eight agencies earned an ‘A+’ on the scorecard and 14 agencies received an ‘A.’ Agencies that showed the most improvement include the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Veterans Affairs — which both went from a ‘B’ to an ‘A.’

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contracting/2020/08/agencies-exceed-women-owned-small-business-contracting-goal-years-after-falling-short/

Change is in the air.

This resulted from issues with the GSA-managed federal procurement data system.

The General Services Administration gave the public a look at its next step in developing the agency’s new small business governmentwide contracting (GWAC) vehicle that will eventually replace the canceled Alliant 2 Small Business contract.

Let me know if you’ve heard this one before: An agency hires “experts” to develop an application, spends tens of millions of dollars and the effort falls flat.

Small businesses have a big stake in the federal marketplace, and the Small Business Administration sets a high bar for the rest of the federal government to do business with them.

Search this Website