Contracting With the U.S. Government
Dateline: 11/07/97
If you sell a product, or provide a service, the U.S. Government probably buys it or needs it. Every year government purchases of goods and services from private contractors amounts to almost 1 Trillion Dollars. A lot of people figure the government only buys from the "Big Boys," like IBM, or Chrysler. They figure wrong! The U.S. Government loves to buy from and contract with small business. Why? Lower prices and better service. Remember, these are days of "more-with-less" in government, and the agencies have been forced to what we do -- shop around.
But, you can't just be-bop into the Oval Office and say, "Yo, Bill! Need some toner cartridges?" Your future involvement in government, though "secure," would not be lucrative. So, how do you go about selling to the U.S. Government? Like most other businesses, you start with the Purchasing Agent.
The General Services Administration (GSA):
The Government's Purchasing Agent
The General Services Administration (GSA) is the Federal Government's purchasing agent. Whether an agency is ordering paper clips or pile driving, they order through the GSA.
Contracting
Opportunities with the Federal Government
Explains how the GSA buys goods and services, who they buy for, and who they
buy from. A great place to start, this page contains a list of regionally
located GSA
Small Business Centers where real people can answer your questions, and
get you registered as a GSA vendor.
The purchasing rules and regulations under which the GSA, agency buyers, and private vendors are contained in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). You can download the FAR from the link to the left, and you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the .PDF file. Why, look! Here's Acrobat now. It's free.
Download Free
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Become a GSA Registered Vendor
The automated government purchasing system is designed to help agency buyers
select from a list of GSA Registered Vendors. Clearly, it is to your advantage
to be one of those. Becoming a GSA Registered Vendor is easy. Just fill out
the online
GSA Vendor Registration Form. You will need to know the SIC (Standard
Industrial Classification) Code for your product or service. A good,
keyword-searchable
Index
to SIC Codes is from the Global-Protrade company.
Small / Minority Owned Business Emphasis
Increasingly, government agencies are encouraged to contract with small
businesses and minority-owned businesses. The
GSA's Office
of Enterprise Development has been established to assist these businesses
in contracting with the government.
Find Who's Buying What, When?
All government agency bids for goods or services are published in "Commerce
Business Daily" the CBD, from the
Government Printing Office
(GPO). The CBD lists procurements (bid proposals), contract awards, sales
of government property, and other special notices. A new edition is published
each business day and will contain from 500-1,000 notices. Generally, all
federal agencies are required to announce all bid or contract actions amounting
to over $25,000 in the CBD. Thus, it is by far the best source of government
contract information.
Besides at least two non-government Web-based services listed later, the GPO itself maintains the Commerce Business Daily home page where you can Browse the CBD Daily Listings, run a standard search of the CBD, or run a fielded search of the CBD. As an example, going to the standard search form and entering the word, "plumbing" will return all standing bids for plumbing services and plumbing-related products. The "fielded" search helps you filter out bids that don't apply to your business.
No matter how you search the CBD, it helps if you know the CBD "Service or Supply Code" for your products or services. Now this is not the same as your SIC Code which you need to become a GSA registered vendor. Your Service or Supply Code only apply to searching and working with the CBD. The best listing of these CBD Codes can be found on the STAT-USA site. They list Service Codes for businesses providing services, and Supply Codes for vendors of specific products.
Results of Searching the CBD
The results of your search of the CBD will produce a listing of outstanding bids and awarded contracts. For example, I ran a simple search on the word "plumbing," and got 40 listings. Here's part of one:
PART: U.S. GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENTS
SUBPART: SUPPLIES, EQUIPMENT AND MATERIAL
CLASSCOD: 45--Plumbing, Heating and Sanitation Equipment
OFFADD: Defense Industrial Supply Center, 700 Robbins Avenue,
Philadelphia, PA 19111-5096
SUBJECT: 45--ATOMIZER ASSEMBLY
SOL SP056098Q3869
DUE 112897
POC Contracting Officer:Judy Nicastro/WAC08/(215)697-4008,Buyer:Cynthia
Watson/WAC12/(215)697-2944
DESC: PR-NO YPI97282001915, NSN 4530-01-197-7168, Atomizer Assembly,
stainless steel, 25 9/16 inches long, internal tube, end cap, and nozzle.
Designed for high-grade hydrocarbon fuels. Per... (... lots cut out by me
...)
...the final contract award price will be based upon a combination of price
and delivery as described in section M of this solicitation. To obtain a
copy of this solicitation please fax request to (215)697-6333, X1462, X2978.
CITE: (W-301 SN138004)
So, in the sample above, the Defense Industrial Supply Center (OFFADD:) wants an Atomizer Assembly (SUBJECT:). The POC: (Point of Contact) tells you who to send your proposal to, or contact with questions, and DUE: is the date (mmddyy) by which your proposal must be received. Finally, the DESC: section will contain specifications, and other details of the contract.
Some listings will even include Web links allowing you to submit your bid online, or via email!
You will also encounter lots of abbreviations and acronyms in the CBD listings. Federal Marketplace, one of the non-government Web-based CBD services, offers this nice list of CBD abbreviations.
Just to prove that the government does, indeed, buy most everything, I searched CBD on "basketball" and found four open contracts for intramural officiating services. Hey, I got a whistle!
Non-Government Internet Sources of CBD Information
Federal
Marketplace
Uses the latest Oracle 7 database technology allowing for contextual
searching
of the CBD listing. You can run searches for free, and they have listings
of SIC
Codes,
Product/Service
Codes, and
CBD
Abbreviations. Still on the "free" level, you can choose to search or
browse the CBD, and select only new proposals, awards, or special notices.
A nice feature. Federal Marketplace also offers fee-based, subscriber-only,
extended searching and marketing functions described on their Web site. One
drawback to Federal Data, however, is that its searches are, frankly, slow.
The
Procurement Assistance Jumpstation
from Federal Marketplace, features over 250 links to government contracting
Internet resources. And, their
State
and Local Procurement Jumpstation supplies over 150 state and local
government contracting sites.
BidCast
is new and offering its CBD searching function free for a limited time. If
you choose to subscribe, $48.75 for three months gets you extended services
including extra search functions and a system that will automatically email
you bids and awards relevant to your business. Once again, BidCast's searches
just seem a little slow to me, but I have about as much patience as an IRS
audit notice.
Leasing Real Estate to the Federal Government
From residential to heavy industrial, the U.S. Government leases building
space all over the United States. If you are interested in having Uncle Sam
as a tenant, check the
GSA's
listings of government leasing opportunities.
Where This Feature Came From:
One day, I got email from a reader asking if I knew of a Web site that listed
all open bids for government purchases. I didn't, but started looking and
an abbreviated version of this feature was the result. That's what U.S.
Government Info/Resources and The Mining Company is all about -- matching
Web resources to your needs. So, do what this reader did.
Just send me a letter
describing what government functions you would like to know more about and
I'll get down to, well, mining.
U.S.
Government Info/Resources Bulletin Board
Have a question, comment or something you want to discuss? Post it on the
Bulletin Board
Index
to U.S. Government Web Space
Links to over 250 agencies, bureaus, commissions and offices in all three
branches of government.
Federal
Job Openings and Resources
40,000 people will get U.S. Government jobs this year. Want to be one of
them?
