Response to General Service Administration solicitation
Responses to schedule solicitations are submitted electronically to eMod/eOffer. It is a sealed bid process, solicited through an invitation for bids. General Service Administration contracts are the indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity and long-term contracts that are under the General Service Administration’s multiple award schedule program. Solicitation is an electronic response process. The processes begin by finding an appropriate solicitation, reading the entire documents and understand all the requirements. As a successful vendor, I will be guided by various guidelines as I reply to the solicitation;
Electronic solicitation submission process
Step 1. Preparing a proposal per the guidelines, checklist of the schedule solicitation, reading the solicitation requirements, and following the outlined instruction keenly.
Step 2. Filling the required data and provide the requested information in the appropriate format.
Step 3. Completing the Standard Form 1949 and submitting it with my electronic signature when responding. The electronic signature ensures that it is only the authorized person who is legally allowed to enter into contract on behalf of the company.
Step 4. Submitting a well-dated copy of all my commercial pricelist together with an appropriate special item number indicated next to each offered service or item. In this step, it is also recommended to ensure that I provide my commercial sales practice format that will provide all pricing history details.
Step 5. In this step, am required to pay attention the pricing included during submission to ensure that I will be ready to negotiate for the best offer from the company. The services I will offer require being within the scope of solicitation and at the same time utilizing the special item numbers.
After submitting all the required documentations, the General Service Administration (GSA) takes about thirty to one hundred and twenty days to review the solicitation bid. It is the work of GSA procurement contracting officer (PCO) to reviews the solicitation and thereafter evaluate the offer based on the following criteria.
Scope: The PCO ensures verifies that the offered products and services match together with the schedule descriptions.
Responsibility: The Company or the individual responding to the solicitation must be in healthy financial state by having the required resources, accounting system, and good records of past’s performance.
Subcontracting plan: This is a provision for large business that requires having a plan for subcontracting a certain percentage of their work to other small businesses.
Pricing analysis and terms review: it is the work of PCO to determine that prices are fair and reasonable.
Once the review is complete, a meeting is scheduled. The aim of the meeting is to ensure that price negotiations are carried out and discuss the terms. These negotiations allow for creation of a discount ratio to the most favored customer with the best pricing and discounts. If the offer is accepted, I will receive a schedules contract that makes me eligible to start doing the business with the government through schedules program.
Security measures are well enhanced in this system. Schedules solicitations are submitted electronically to an eOffer/eMod. This system uses the latest digital technology in authentication. It allows for electronic signatures with data integrity thus safeguarding important information for the users.
Electronic solicitation submission is advantageous as compared to paper solicitations. It ensures there is rapid notification of claim receipt, reduces paperwork, reduces staff time spent on follow-up and tracking, eliminates cost of postage for envelopes and forms, improves cash flow, and lowers outstanding receivables.
As a small business producing remote control aircraft, I have the same chance of having my solicitation bid accepted as those of large companies. The government interest in procuring goods and services is to get them competitively based on the best value to the government. According to Small Business Act of July 30, 1953, business administration was created to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interest of small business. Businesses that qualify as small disadvantaged business have preferential access to government contracting that includes price evaluation adjustments, monetary subcontracting incentives that are designed to encourage participation I government contracting (Miller, 2006). It is evident that GSA is an advocate for small disadvantaged, women-owned, hub zone, veteran and service-disabled veteran –owned business. GSA ensures that there are established goals for awarding contracts to the small business. Since small business programs have set asides that are reserved for competitions among small disadvantaged business, GSA seeks out to offer bids to small business that are able to provide national wide or local services and products. Therefore, as a small business, I stand very high chance of having my bid accepted by the government.
Once the solicitation process is accepted, the next step is to upload contract information to GSA. Negotiation will follow to reach the best term possible both for the GSA and for me. The purpose of these negotiations is to get a good deal within the boundaries of the applicable laws and regulations. Speculates of my negotiation process would involve the following steps:
Step 1. Preparation. I need to be prepared in advance by understanding contract having conducted a price/cost analysis. I need to identify issue I want to negotiate such as the contract offer, highlighting the important parts. Additionally, I need to issue information and classify them according to; Negotiable-These are issues that I will comfortably negotiate and be flexible; non-negotiable- These are the issue that I will not negotiate and not budge. Separating these issues will set a limit of my negotiation terms and condition. Then I will prepare the meeting agenda that I will work according to and finally getting ready to negotiate.
Step 2. scheduling an in-person negotiation. During the meeting, I will tend to be friendly but professional by negotiating disputed contract terms with the other party until we reach a compromise. I will use some of the contract terms that are less important to me as a leverage to get the terms want.
Step 3. To summarize all the points that, we will agree upon. Some of the points to summarize will be payment terms, contract volume, the date the contract will start and the price of the contract. After the negotiation, process is through and awarded the contract, it will be my duty to keep track of the expiration and the renewal dates that will be contained in the contract.
Federal and state contracting authorities are including Most Favored Customer (MFC) clauses in contracts for procurement. The importance of these clauses is to ensure that the federal government receives at least a favorable pricing as other customers making similar purchases. The Federal Government MFCs are the suppliers who offer the best prices for the products and the services they render to the government. In other words, this position is taken by the big companies. As in my case, the Boeing Company fits to be the MFC for the federal government. This company is sustainable in terms of price offered and the services rendered. It has the capacity to negotiate for the best prices. This results to a competitive advantage to them as compared to my small business. The impact of these MFC to GSA as compared to my small business is that my capacity to secure government contract is limited. This MFC have better marketing strategy as compared to my small business thus limiting my growth to a bigger business.
Small businesses are a continuing source of dynamism for the economy. The Small Business Act of 1953 states that small disadvantaged business should receive a fair of federal contracts and that they should have a maximum practical opportunity to participate in all the federal contracting. Therefore, as a small business, am eligible and have a high chance of winning a contract. There is no bureaucracy. There is limited competition for contracting among small business as compared to large businesses. For small company, it is easier to manage and administer contracts timely since the decision-making is fast and there are minimal procedural practices for the contrast. Large companies require a collective decision-making before the commencement of any contract, therefore they take a long time before they reach an agreement for all the company stakeholders. As a small business, I have an n ability to respond quickly to changing economic condition during the execution of the contract. There is cost advantage to small business. The cost of starting and running a small company is lower as compared to those of running big companies. As a small company, I have access to small business loans and grants that can help me administer contracts to the customers. There is better access to credit with lower rates and flexibility with changing contract conditions. Being a small company, I enjoy several important initiatives by the federal government that is intended to benefit small businesses. These programs include, (1) set-aside program- this is a program that help small businesses win government contracts and help assure that small businesses are awarded a fair proportion of government contracts by reserving certain government purchases exclusively for participation by the small business(Rice, 1991).(2) small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) – this program encourages small business like that of mine to explore my technological potential while providing the incentive to profit for contract commercialization. The SBIR funds the startup and the development stages of projects that serve a government need. Therefore, my company is eligible to all the above said benefits on basis that it is a small company.
In contrast, large companies have high competitive edge due to their stable financial resources and therefore there are seen to secure most government contracts.
As a marketing strategy, the Federal Government has moved from in-house production to contracts on GSA Multiple Awards Schedule for acquisition solutions. Both large and small companies market their bid to the federal government through the following methods:
1. FedBizOpps (FBO). Government wide Point of Entry for Procurement Opportunities.
Federal Business Opportunity (FedBizOpps) is a management by the general serves administration that is designated as the single source of federal government procurements. It is open for all vendors and there are no restrictions. The FedBizOpps system provides the vendor with the ability to browse active procurement notices.
2. Federal Procurement Data system
As part of GSA, it acts as a repository of all statistical information on federal contracting. The system contains information on contracts actions and all the summary data on procurements. It is in this system that vendors identify who bought what and at what price. Vendors post their business activities here and therefore provide an opportunity for them to identify customers.
3. Commercial business daily
This act as a notification site for procurement. This site contains historical information about the government agency purchases and a company can find which potential customer have bought their services in the past and even know when their existing contract expires.
4. Federal acquisition jump station.
This provides websites of federal procurements information that is broken down by the agency. It is in this site that vendors obtain announcements of all the upcoming and the current acquisition, solicitations as well as the federal acquisition regulation for contacting their services and product to the government and other agencies.
All the above methods require to be integrated with the resources that will make a company as a successful marketer. This resources in includes small business administration procurement marketing and access network that links small business with procurement opportunities, mailing lists that gives customers names and titles, GSA associations and forums that are targeted for federal government audience.
For my company, I would use FedBizOpps, federal procurement data system and the commercial daily as the method of marketing my products and services to the federal government. The rationale for using these methods is that they are GSA-linked. Therefore, it will offer me GSA Advantage that include offering quick and easy identification of products and services for my customers, increases potential for strong contract sale, and provides customers and the federal organizations a direct link to my company’s website. Finally, it reduces catalog printing and the mailing costs for my company.
References
Rice, M. F. (1991). Government set-asides, minority business enterprises, and the Supreme Court. Public Administration Review, 114-122.
Miller-Kermani, Donn. (2006) Exploring New Frontiers: What is really Out There in Government Contracting and is it for me? Florida Institute of Technology. Melbourne, FL: National Center for Small Business Information