What to Do to Get Into This Market

To get on a schedule, there are fees involved and, once listed, a company must maintain a minimal level of business with the government. When bidding on federal contracts, the government agency defines the project, and gives an overall view of what it should entail, usually at a defined budget. The company then needs to design the solution and, working with its contractors, detail how the project will be completed.

Forging tight relationships with manufacturers or subcontractors suited to government applications can be very advantageous for companies. It is not uncommon for the manufacturer — especially those with GSA approval — to be approached directly or otherwise learn of a project opportunity before it is publicly announced.

What Government Customers Want

Like end users in other markets, government customers are looking for turnkey solutions. GSA Contractors can separate themselves from traditional dealers and service providers by offering specialized and complete solutions. Understanding and helping these clients meet compliance requirements is another key element.

Challenges Working in This Sector

The fact that compliance is such an important aspect of government business makes it imperative companies maintain complete and accurate records of everything. After all, no matter how much push there is to simplify or streamline processes, this market will likely always have a certain degree of bureaucracy. Ensure that your company is meeting all compliance requirements, from quoting and bidding with compliant products and making sure the backup paperwork to the bid has the required documentation.

Just as vital as written details are verbal communications. Government organizations can be complex with multiple points of contact, which makes frequent dialogue that spells out everything essential to ensuring clarity for all parties. An additional and substantial consideration associated in engaging in government business is contending with extended timelines. Large projects can stretch out for long periods of time. This means a company needs to have sufficient cash flow to withstand bidding, design, installation, change orders and final walkthrough before receiving final payment for the contract.

The government moves steadily and slowly. The bidding process can go on for three months or more. A company can save time by creating a series of templates that can be saved and then cut and pasted into their proposals. Each bidding proposal will create more templates that can then be stored and available for future proposals.

A study showed in 2011, 29,800 companies took the plunge and decided to do work with the federal government for the first time.  These companies were awarded $10.9 Billion in contracts that year or $365,772 in revenue per firm.  A large reason for this success is that the federal market place is requiring the rotation of vendors.

“Rotation of Vendors” policy is an attempt to distribute government spending among available vendors, rather than awarding similar contracts to the same vendor on an ongoing basis.  They used a system called PPIRS which stands for Past Performance Information Retrieval System. This system was overused which made the venders monopolize the government contracts even if their performance was viewed negatively.

The requirement of federal procurement officers to rotate vendors supersedes the PPIRS system.   This has forced procurement officers to give new vendors a try as long as the new vendor meets the price and quality specifications.  The officer finds a new vendor through GSA Advantage.  GSA Advantage is the online shopping mall for goods and services of companies that have a GSA Schedule.  The benefit for the officers is this list shows firms that are actively doing business with the government and the prices have already been reviewed by the GSA Administrators.

The Procurement officers are using a new system called (D&B) Open Ratings System, which is a requirement to get on a GSA Schedule.  Open Ratings is the process whereby D&B emails surveys to a company’s references to quantify a list of measurable regarding the vendors past performance in the commercial market place.  A low score on Open Ratings will greatly reduce firms contracting opportunities where a high score will greatly increase firms contracting opportunities.

Open Ratings are completed in conjunction and are part of a vendors GSA Schedule.  Therefore obtaining a GSA Schedule with strong Open Ratings Report will put your firm to the top of the list of new contractors. GSA Focus includes the Open Ratings Report in the process of acquiring companies GSA Contract. The process involves submitting customer contact information for between 5 and 20 customers, followed by email survey’s being sent to these customers. After 5 surveys are completed, the Open Ratings Report can be generated.

I know many GSA employees very well, and the majority are extremely dedicated and competent workers. This episode will stand to improve the agency as a whole as the pendulum swings back towards accountability. My hope is that the acquisition times will improve greatly in the coming years, and the GSA will become proactive in enacting the programs inherited by the executive and legislative branches. Unfortunately, as Martha Johnson said in her Congressional Statement, there seems to have grown a culture of reaction to congress and presidential mandates that have bogged down and frustrated many high-level GSA officials.

In a recent conference I attended, I saw first hand how many human resources are being poured into the whimsical green initiatives the Obama administration has forced upon the GSA. This redirection of focus has had a devastating impact on the one-time efficiently ran GSA I knew 2 or 3 years ago. I believe that this will shake-up the organization, and those that do follow the GSA closely will see many improvements in the coming months and years.

General Services Administration chief Dan Tangherlini reprimanded organizers of a Las Vegas training conference in a video on Tuesday, calling their 2010 spending spree “completely unacceptable.” He said “there were violations of travel rules, acquisition rules and good conduct. Those responsible violated rules of common sense, the spirit of public service and the trust taxpayers have placed in all of us.”

He urged GSA employees to read the report on the four-day Western Regions Conference released last week by Inspector General Brian Miller. It revealed details of an $823,000 junket at the luxury M Hotel and Casino for 300 West Coast employees. Reports of the misdeeds have embarrassed the Obama administration and focused attention on the relatively little-known GSA, which manages all federal real estate and does most government purchasing.

Seven senior GSA leaders have been fired or placed on administrative leave pending further disciplinary action. Administrator Martha N. Johnson resigned under pressure last week hours before the report was released. Four congressional hearings on the scandal are scheduled for next week.

Agencies are starting to be mandated to buy green products, so in the future the more green products we can get on schedule the better. 9 out of the 26 GSA Schedules currently have green offerings of some sort.

GSA Advantage now has a section of the website that helps buyers search specifically for “green” products. This can be accessed through the “Environmental Program” link on the GSA Advantage homepage.

There are higher-level analyses being done to figure out which items the government buys that have the most impact on the environment.

GSA Links:

Go Green. At GSA, we offer products and services that support your Green efforts and help our nation build a clean energy future and protect the environment. learn more »

GSA Environmental Policy. GSA is committed to provide world class products and services that minimizes harm to the environment, safety, and health. GSA is living up to this commitment, not only in regards to the products and services we provide customers, but also in the way we conduct internal operations. view GSA Environmental Policy »

GSA’s Environmental Services. Reduce your agency’s environmental footprint and meet agency goals through the services available on Schedule 899. learn more »

GSA’s Environmental Products. Smarter Solutions for a Better Environment. GSA offers a variety of environmentally friendly products and services to assist in your environmental procurement responsibilities. learn more about GSA solutions »

Environmental Symbols. What do the environmental symbols on GSA Advantage mean? view the Symbol definitions »

Recycling & Property Disposal. GSA helps federal agencies protect the environment through programs such as waste collection, recycling, and energy-saving property disposal practices.  learn more »

The Reality of the Situation
In the past, the General Services Administration (GSA) has received many complaints from contract holders that they do not show in the list of competitors when similar items are brought up in a GSA Advantage! search. As it stands today items are categorized by the Name, Part Number, Product Description etc. Most often than not we receive incomplete product descriptions or inaccurate products. The system categorizes the best it can based on the information received. The GSA believes that UPC’s will help solve that issue by placing items in the correct category.

Most often contract holders don’t know they are in the wrong category or mis-categorized altogether. The result is that GSA Advantage! cannot offer all products lined up in a comparison matrix. The GSA is using a similar model to sites such as Amazon.com who use UPC to better categorize items. These issues are concerns of a lot of contract holders, the they are trying to resolve their issues by using UPC codes. Currently (February 2012) only one UPC code is required for each category, to ease into the requirement. However, by the end of 2012, each product within the group of Categories will require ALL PRODUCTS have UPC Codes.

Why this Solution will Fail
Many items on GSA are marketed through distributors and UPC codes are unused by the vast majority of the product manufacturers. These manufacturers are refusing to go through the costly and arduous procedure of applying UPC codes to all products, let alone update them throughout the years. The result of this new UPC requirement will be that each GSA Contractor will be forced to acquire UPC codes for all product lines offered under the list of required SIN’S. This  will lead to two problems for the GSA:

1)      Higher prices for the items to compensate for the added costs to list them on contract (UPC Codes are expensive), and

2)      Product numbers for the same product will have multiple UPC Codes, one for every GSA Contractor offering that item, because distributorships are common on the foodservice schedule and the manufacturers will not agree to UPC Code their products.

Therefore, you will see higher prices, and the same issues within the GSA Advantage! results will persist. The solution is to better educate contractors to comply with universal part# and description requirements in order to get their products listed with identical items. If the GSA would communicate how to conform to a universal procedure when uploading products, then it would be in the best interest of GSA Contractors to submit to follow these rules because their products would be found by customers more frequently. The UPC solution is simply asking GSA Contractors to throw their money at the GSA’s problem.

The Predictable Backlash
The costs that GSA Contractors will need to incur to maintain participation with their GSA Contract(s) will be in thousands of dollars. Depending on the number of products and which categories they fall into, the costs will go up from there. This places a strenuous burden on small businesses, while putting little strain on large companies. Therefore, this is going to have a large impact on the small businesses and set-aside companies that pursue business in the federal market. On the flip-side, the federal governments ability to locate and procure from set-aside companies will diminish shortly after the UPC requirement takes full effect. Small Businesses will, in effect, be choked out of certain GSA Schedules because of the cost requirements of the UPC Code requirement.

Here are the topics covered:

1. Identify the customer
2. Analyze the current and future needs
3. How to choose the right tools
4. Discuss solution oriented proposals
5. Understand marketing pitfalls

• According to the FAR 4.11, prospective vendors must be registered in CCR prior to the award of a contract; basic agreement, basic ordering agreement, or blanket purchase agreement.
• According to FAR 52.204-7, to register in CCR, a firm must have a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number. The DUNS Number is assigned by Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. (D&B) to identify unique business entities.

These are very true, and without registering your Company with CCR, you can kiss federal contracts goodbye. But this can be a challenge. Especially in the “Goods/Services” section, where acronyms are cited, and you probably dont have a clue where to even begin. Below you will find links to the best resources I have come across (as of early 2012):

NAICS Code Search - http://www.naics.com/searchresultsnew.php

PCS Code Full List Download - http://www.fpdsng.com/downloads/psc_data_Oct012011.xls

FSC Full List - http://www.dispositionservices.dla.mil/asset/fsclist.html

We have had to adjust and adapt to the ever-changing GSA requirements, with a longer review process and more stringent initial reviews. And, we can still say that we offer an affordable and superior solution for any company looking to get on a GSA Schedule.

Recently, I came across a tool that helps to unearth improvement centers in the area of Time Management. When you know how to manage your time you gain control. Rather than busily working here, there, and everywhere (and not getting much done anywhere), effective time management helps you to choose what to work on and when.

The MindTools interactive Time Management Quiz will help you identify the aspects of time management that you need most help with. The results will point you to the specific tools you need to use to gain control of your time, and start working efficiently.

How Good is Your Time Management?

The quiz will take your answers and rank you on 5 core Time Management categories: Goal Setting, Prioritization, Managing Interruptions, Procrastination and Scheduling. Whether you are in a large company or an entrepreneur, this quiz will give you a brutally honest assessment, and some tips on how to overcome your shortfalls in the area of Time Management.

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