by frstsite | Dec 27, 2011 | Government Resources
Requests for Quotes (RFQs) Since the advent of major procurement reform, the federal government and selected state and local governments are now using requests for quotes (RFQs) to buy commercial products and services. The RFQ procedure is a simpler, more streamlined...
by frstsite | Dec 27, 2011 | Government Resources
Minority-Owned, Women-Owned Business Contracting In the prior installment, we talked about women-owned business contracting. This week, we discuss the 8(a) Business Development Program and the Small Disadvantaged Business Certification (SDB) Program. Background: The...
by frstsite | Dec 27, 2011 | Government Resources
State and Local Procurement Rules When selling to a state or local government, it’s important to have a basic understanding of the rules of the jurisdiction to which you’re selling. At the very least, understand the particular jurisdiction’s...
by frstsite | Dec 27, 2011 | Government Resources
Performance-Based Contracting Federal, state and local governments have engaged in performance-based contracting for a long time. We’ve witnessed a dramatic upswing, however, in the last few of years, especially at the federal level. Last year, the Office of...
by frstsite | Dec 27, 2011 | Government Resources
Minority-Owned Business Contracting In the prior installment, we talked about women-owned business contracting. This week, we discuss the 8(a) Business Development Program and the Small Disadvantaged Business Certification (SDB) Program. Background: The Law The Small...
by frstsite | Dec 27, 2011 | Government Resources
Federal Acquisition of Foreign Supplies and Services Throughout this series, “Doing Business with Government,” we’ve tried to unravel some of the tangled rules and conventions of government contracting. There is no topic, however, that is a better...
by frstsite | Dec 27, 2011 | Government Resources
Small Business Contracting Only businesses that fall under certain established size standards are deemed small and allowed to bid on small business set-asides. Federal Programs The Law Let’s begin with an overview of federal law: The Small Business Act of 1953...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Pricing Bids Pricing your bid correctly directly affects two fundamentally important areas of your business: whether you win or lose the bid, and whether you gain profit or suffer loss on the contract. Is there anything more important in proposal preparation than...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Oral Presentation When government agency personnel notify you that they would like your company to make an oral presentation, it’s a very good thing. It either means that you submitted a proposal in response to a request for proposal (negotiated procurement) and...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Responding to Public Procurements In the early selling stage prior to a public procurement announcement, you will also be gathering valuable information for writing your proposal (if one is required), making a bid/no bid decision, and pricing the bid. Gathering...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Publicly-Announced Negotiated Procurements The publicly-advertised negotiated procurement market segment is a new world for companies that have not bid on negotiated procurements using requests for proposal (RFP) procedures. Responding to RFPs is unique for several...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Acquisition Planning An acquisition plan is a document that shows what products and services are required, and how they are acquired, during the life of a given project. Acquisition Plan: Definition An acquisition plan: Provides agency management with information for...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Teaming Government contracts are getting bigger. Requirements that were once performed under, say, six to ten contracts might now be performed under only one. Not surprisingly, teaming is becoming more prevalent, especially among companies offering services to...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
FACNET In 1993, President Clinton issued a memorandum entitled “Streamlining Procurement Through Electronic Commerce,” which called for establishment of a “complete government-wide implementation of electronic commerce for appropriate federal...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Invitation for Bids Publicly-advertised fixed price procurements are made using either a sealed Invitation for Bid (IFB) or a Request for Quote (RFQ). Governments require more formality in these larger procurements because there is more money at stake: they want to be...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Past Performance In selecting winning vendors, federal, state, and local governments have typically looked at past contract performance information as part of their overall evaluation processes. Simply stated, vendors that have a history of performing well have always...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Debriefings and Protests Debriefing and protest regulations are presented in Federal Acquisition Regulation 15.5 Preaward, Award, and Postaward Notifications, Protests, and Mistakes. The basic rules as outlined in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) are as...
by frstsite | Dec 23, 2011 | Government Resources
Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Contracts The General Service Administration’s Federal Supply Service (FSS) operates the federal supply schedule program. The program leverages the purchasing power of the U.S. government to garner volume discounts for commercial...
by frstsite | Dec 22, 2011 | Government Resources
Finding Subcontracting Opportunities Finding subcontracting business is a bit like finding prime contracting business: you can focus on the bids as they come out (and be a part of the crowd), or you can get ahead of the game by talking to the right people BEFORE the...
by frstsite | Dec 22, 2011 | Government Resources
Earning Your Women Business Enterprise (WBE) Certification I’m in the process of completing my application for the Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) status for the State of Ohio, and I can say that earning your certification is not for everyone. This...
by frstsite | Dec 22, 2011 | Government Resources
Selling to Government Cardholders A number of important changes came out of the federal Procurement Reform Era of the mid 1990s. Perhaps the most significant of these was the emergence of widespread government credit card purchasing. In an effort to reduce red tape...
by frstsite | Dec 22, 2011 | Government Resources
Government Small Purchases In this article, we talk about small purchases, defined here as government buys in the $2,500 to $25,000 range. We’ve touched on this subject in past articles. This time we devote an entire article to it, and get into a bit more...
by frstsite | Dec 22, 2011 | Government Resources
Winning Government Contracts I’m assuming that you have already gone through the process of certification with your state and/or the two national programs that are discussed here. Making it through that process means that you have a serious business enterprise,...
by frstsite | Dec 22, 2011 | Government Resources
Finding Information on Future Procurements In “Finding Official Buyers,” we talked about finding formal bid opportunity announcements, more popularly referred to as “bids.” That’s a fairly basic subject, one that is rather easy to...
by frstsite | Dec 22, 2011 | Government Resources
Moving Your Business Into International Markets Current statistics show that 56% of web users are English speaking with 30% speaking European languages and the remaining 14% speaking Asian languages. Projections call for the number of overseas web users to increase...
