Community Member

Standards need to be established to for how buyers are completing their due diligence as it relates to verification of classifications. If the government worked to align its practices between systems, regulated/verified information submitted, and created a more holistic structure of classifications, the government would see better practices, overall increased compliance, and enhanced utilization of small businesses. ...more »

The government should identify as many opportunities to use platforms for open market competition as possible in order to increase participation in federal business from a more diverse community of suppliers. Many organizations are too entrenched in their relationships with huge corporations and the use of BPAs that many small- and minority-owned businesses are denied access to these opportunities where they may be able ...more »

Small business utilization guidelines should be simplified in an effort to increase compliance. For instance, when the Department of Veterans Affairs instituted a small business mandate in FY12, manufacturers were forced to change their distribution and sales strategy. This funneled sales to smaller businesses—many of them veteran-owned—and also increased the competitive environment for these contracts. Interestingly, ...more »

The government should be less reluctant to bar vendors with poor federal contract past performance from participating in federal business opportunities, or should otherwise provide a centralized resource for reporting and reviewing past performance on federal contracts. The bar for being placed on EPLS is alarmingly high. While it makes sense that the government would be cautious and judicious in adding a registered contractor ...more »

The federal procurement community should create a document that outlines the most common regulations with which buyers must comply, in a way the average (non-contracting) person could understand. This would give vendors more insight into why contracting officers make the decisions they do, leading to less frustration and fewer questions. This would also create more accountability on part of the purchasing agent to with ...more »

The government may be able to increase the likelihood of new vendor participation (particularly among small businesses) if it lowers the ‘barrier of entry’ to doing business with the government through contractor registration simplification. One of the most common complaints from Sellers new to Federal procurement is the process of needing to register with multiple databases (DUNS, SAM, ORCA, IPP) before a vendor can ...more »

The government (and the taxpayer) could be best served if procurement officials modernize their processes for managing and tracking procurement data. Why ’reengineer paperwork’ when the trend is to go paperless? I get the point—I’m just being a bit whimsical. The meaning of the message really: How can we improve our processes, decisions, and trust if we don’t have a piece of paper validating what we are doing? There are ...more »

There needs to be more of an emphasis on Level 3 data. Currently government buyers may only be receiving reports on their organization’s spend that states X spent Y amount of money at Z store. Reports should really state that X spent Y amount of money at Z store on A, B, and C items. With this data in hand, CFOs could hold their teams more accountable for their decisions regarding the use of funds. Such data would ...more »