Small Business Leadership Training
Provide all federal procurement/contracting office, small business office including SBA, and senior leadership across all agencies training on "effectively removing barriers impacting small business success."
Browse Ideas with tag 'government contracting':
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This idea is active.General »Add your comment for Idea: Small Business Leadership Training -
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This idea is active.General »Fix or do away with DCAA
1 comment for Idea: Fix or do away with DCAAFix or do away with the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). They are unable to perform audits in a competent and timely manner delaying payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to small business.
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This idea is active.General »Change CFR 121.1101(b) SBA office of hearings and appeals
Your agency’s Office of Hearings and Appeals will not review an appeal where the contract has been awarded [13 C.F.R 121.1101(b)]. To correct the errors an SBA size determination in such a case the small business must proceed to Federal District Court (and incur additional legal expenses). In dismissing an appeal without review, the SBA lost accountability for its personnel who made the size determination and put additional ...more »
1 comment for Idea: Change CFR 121.1101(b) SBA office of hearings and appealsYour agency’s Office of Hearings and Appeals will not review an appeal where the contract has been awarded [13 C.F.R 121.1101(b)]. To correct the errors an SBA size determination in such a case the small business must proceed to Federal District Court (and incur additional legal expenses). In dismissing an appeal without review, the SBA lost accountability for its personnel who made the size determination and put additional costs on small business.
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This idea is active.General »Small Business Leadership Performance Quals
Add your comment for Idea: Small Business Leadership Performance QualsInclude in the performance standards for all federal procurement/contracting office, small business office including SBA, and senior leadership across all agencies the requirement "effectively removes barriers impacting small business success."
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This idea is active.General »From Government to Commercial Sales
Add your comment for Idea: From Government to Commercial SalesDevelop strategies to ease burdens and enable small business government contractors to take their lessons learned from working with the government into commercial markets.
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This idea is active.General »Business Competency of Federal Personnel
2 comments for Idea: Business Competency of Federal PersonnelLimit federal employment to no more than 20 years of service for employees without commerical work experience. Require all federal procurement/contracting office, small business office including SBA, and senior leadership across all agencies to have a minimum of 5 years of commercial/industry experience.
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This idea is active.General »Small Business Office and Leadership Support for Success
1 comment for Idea: Small Business Office and Leadership Support for SuccessMake government small business offices and agency leadership responsible for success of small business contracts for the government agency rather than just repsonsible for tracking/meeting set-aside goals.
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This idea is active.General »Small Business Administration Proposed Rule.13 CFR Part 121; RIN
The $27.0 Million Size Standard and New Focus on Multiple Award Contract Vehicles. As the Federal Government moves toward awarding large-scale multiple award contracts while minimizing single award vehicles, businesses just surpassing size standards are forced to compete with much larger companies in order to secure these vehicles and maintain their business base. These vehicles have exceedingly high dollar thresholds ...more »
2 comments for Idea: Small Business Administration Proposed Rule.13 CFR Part 121; RINThe $27.0 Million Size Standard and New Focus on Multiple Award Contract Vehicles. As the Federal Government moves toward awarding large-scale multiple award contracts while minimizing single award vehicles, businesses just surpassing size standards are forced to compete with much larger companies in order to secure these vehicles and maintain their business base. These vehicles have exceedingly high dollar thresholds and do not take into account medium-sized business concerns.
Example: SPAWAR Atlantic is preparing to release 18 full and open MAC contracts in 2011. These vehicles range in value from $100M to $900M dollars. More than half of the vehicles to be released are valued at more than $500M. Mid-size companies will be forced out of competition when they are unable to show experience managing similar sized vehicles. At the same time, they are precluded from bidding the small business setaside MACs as they surpass the size standard.
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This idea is active.General »Increase Contract Periods of Performance
1 comment for Idea: Increase Contract Periods of PerformanceIncrease periods of performance and/or award terms for small business contracts to allow small business time to mature and grow.
Moving towards shorter periods of performance, as the DOD is doing now, will not increase competition and lower costs. It will only increase costs and make it more difficult for small businesses to grow.
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This idea is active.General »SBA pay for small business size protest legal costs
2 comments for Idea: SBA pay for small business size protest legal costsHave the SBA pay for small business legal cost to defend a size protest. This will encourage the agency to improve it's rules and understanding of how small and large businesses work together to be both profitable and productive suppliers to the government.
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This idea is active.General »FAR/DFAR
1 comment for Idea: FAR/DFARSpend more effort on removing regulations from the FAR/DFAR than the effort spent adding to them and trying to manage government contracts according to them. Have government agencies apply common sense and sound ethics vice the present level of reliance placed upon the FAR/DFAR driven bureaucracy.
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This idea is active.General »Put more trust into practice
1 comment for Idea: Put more trust into practiceRemove from federal procurement regulations all "lowest common denominator" type regulations and give small businesses the benefit of the doubt. Ensure that federal procurement regulation actually achieve the intent behind the rule.
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This idea is active.General »Small Business Administration Proposed Rule.13 CFR Part 121; RIN
The $27.0 Million Size Standard and Past Performance Requirements. The majority of contracts in the Military Weapons exemption for NAICS Code 541330 code are so large that even though a firm may be considered “large” at 27.0 million, the firm often cannot meet the past performance requirements stipulated in Government Requests for Proposal (RFPs) which demand “contracts of similar size and scope.” Consequently, small ...more »
Add your comment for Idea: Small Business Administration Proposed Rule.13 CFR Part 121; RINThe $27.0 Million Size Standard and Past Performance Requirements. The majority of contracts in the Military Weapons exemption for NAICS Code 541330 code are so large that even though a firm may be considered “large” at 27.0 million, the firm often cannot meet the past performance requirements stipulated in Government Requests for Proposal (RFPs) which demand “contracts of similar size and scope.” Consequently, small businesses that outgrow the NAICS limits are punished for achieving the growth goals any business aims to accomplish. The language mandating contracts of “similar size and scope” is standard across the Department of Defense. Some contracting offices (e.g., SPAWAR and the U.S. Coast Guard) routinely assign minimum dollar thresholds for each past performance example, essentially cutting out mid-tier size firms from the competition.
Example: A company with annual receipts of, e.g, $30 million, isn’t even eligible to compete on a $100 million contract based on standard RFP requirements.
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This idea is active.General »Effect of Size Standards on the Erosion of the Mid-Level Compani
Effect of Size Standards on the Erosion of the Mid-Level Companies. In recent years, mid-size firms, by virtue of being neither small enough nor large enough to successfully compete, have consistently and considerably seen their share of the market decline, according to Gregory Sanders et al.’s report Structure and Dynamics of the U.S. Federal Professional Services Industrial Base 1995-2009 (see figure 3-14, Sanders et ...more »
Add your comment for Idea: Effect of Size Standards on the Erosion of the Mid-Level CompaniEffect of Size Standards on the Erosion of the Mid-Level Companies. In recent years, mid-size firms, by virtue of being neither small enough nor large enough to successfully compete, have consistently and considerably seen their share of the market decline, according to Gregory Sanders et al.’s report Structure and Dynamics of the U.S. Federal Professional Services Industrial Base 1995-2009 (see figure 3-14, Sanders et al., 47). The Executive Summary of the report finds that:
“[I]t is clear that those in the middle tier have suffered an erosion of their relative share. In 1995, middle-tier companies captured 40 percent of the total value of federal professional services contracts. By 2009, the middle-tier companies were able to capture only 30 percent of that value. At the same time, (…) [s]mall companies have sustained a 19–22 percent market share in the value of prime contracts. The large companies in this industry have been particularly active via mergers and acquisitions and have been able to increase their market share from 41 percent of the total market in 1995 to 48 percent in 2009. Thus, the middle tier has been squeezed from above by consolidation and from below by the slight growth in small contractors’ share of the market” (Sanders et al. XV).
The report concludes: “Traditionally, mid-tier companies have served as a conduit for new ideas and improved business practices. Policymakers must determine whether a robust middle tier of services companies is important or desirable for the federal marketplace. If so, current incentives for companies to enter and remain in this mid-market level must be revisited.” (Sanders et al. 53)
Because small business size standards are not updated very often, this is an ideal time to re-look at these size standards in light of the erosion of the mid-tier firms.
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