Open Dialogue on Improving How to Do Business with the Federal Government Ideas

Government has been doing great things on setting up policies like "Cloud First". Same must be considered for "Small Business First" for each and every procurement and have those evaluation/findings report publish to small business so, businesses can improve on how decisions were made. This provides opportunity for small business to improve and extend services as expected.

Government can leverage the GSA evaluation process that is completed once and provide access to small business on opportunities on other similar vehicles as a default. This will increase competition and save taxpayer & small business dollars and effort on RFP responses and evaluations.

Example a GSA STARS-II industry partner must have access to Schedule IT-70 (atleast for the same NAICS Codes)

Question 1: How can we make doing business with the government easier and less costly for small businesses, minority businesses, new entrants, and non-traditional government contractors? Answer 1: So far I have not encountered any costs with trying to start a business, because I am doing extension research first. I do see there are a lot of costs to get started. Question 2: If you are a small business, minority ...more »

I have been trying to get paid for a service I provided to the federal government awhile ago. Previously, I had an account on the CCR system. I have been trying to migrate it to the SAM system, without success. I have called the SAM help lines (there seem to be a few of them) many times. The main purpose of the representatives seems to be to upsell callers for a $599 service to facilitate the registration process. So, ...more »

Currently there is a Commercial Items test programs that allows use of SAP up to $6.5M for commercial items, or NDIs that have been sold to State and Local Governments. Unfortunately some design activities are wary about providing commercial item determinations because they fear it could cause them to lose control of the item to another design activity or lose Quality Assurance capabilities. There is also a military ...more »

The time is right for a public policy discussion contrasting the SWOT for fully outsourcing government IT - no longer would government own, maintain, and upgrade IT infrastructure or application development, but instead private industry would provide government with secure cloud-based DaaS/SaaS that would accelerate commercial as well as government security, convenience, affordability, and trust compared to ownership. ...more »

FBO should list correct Product and Service Codes from the FPDS Manual found at http://www.acquisition.gov/PSC%20Manual%20-%20Final%20-%2011%20August%202011.pdf If the codes could be validated before posting, it would help small businesses locate appropriate opportunities. For example, it would be easier for a roofer to locate a roofing contract if the FBO announcement is coded with a 'Y' or 'Z' designation, instead ...more »

Issue: Intellectual property rights as currently set forth in GSA Schedule contracts are unclear, cumbersome and unduly burdensome for contractors. The End User License Agreement (EULA) requirements remain unclear in IT Schedule 70. As such, each license agreement must be reviewed by the contracting officer and legal counsel. Recommendation: A basic set of terms should be developed that identify the key requirements ...more »

Issue: Restrictive experience requirements under the GSA Schedule program. For example, under IT Schedule 70 a company must have been in business for at least two years to be eligible for a contract. The GSA Schedule experience requirements limit access to new, innovation companies providing cutting edge technologies. It is an unnecessary barrier to entry to the federal market place. Recommendation: Eliminate the mandatory ...more »

Issue: The overly complex, burdensome ordering procedures for the establishment of Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) under the GSA Schedules program. Specifically the preference for multiple award BPAs over single award BPAs. The strong preference of multiple award BPAs undermines the ability of customer agencies to achieve best value outcomes using the GSA Schedules program. It essentially limits the tools in the tool ...more »

Issue: Reform the MAS Pricing Policies. Specifically, eliminate the Price Reduction Clause (PRC), GSAR Clause 552.238-75. The current MAS pricing policies do not reflect current practices in the commercial market place. The pricing policies are inconsistent with the statutory and regulatory mandates for competition at the order level. The increased transactional and contract administration costs for compliance with the ...more »

Issue: Extensive data collection requirements via the Federal Acquisition Regulation combined with an explosion in data reporting for agency specific procurement programs and the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI). These data reporting requirements are increasing costs and risks for contractors across the federal procurement enterprise. Costs that are ultimately borne by customer agencies through higher prices ...more »