January - February 2008   Volume 4, Issue 1

      

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Contract bundling is the process of combining several projects or smaller contracts into a single procurement that often also has a longer period of performance.

As you may have learned, the Department of Education awarded the EDUCATE contract to Perot Systems. This contract is another recent example of the government trend toward contract bundling.

There are many arguments and reasons to support contract bundling as efficient in terms of the cost of procurement and allowing agencies to focus on their individual missions as opposed to procurement or areas of information technology or engineering management.

It should be noted that the contract bundling process also significantly diminishes competition for a huge, in this case $400 million, project. If the projects were broken out and competed separately it would allow for a greater field of competition and greater number of bids. The contract bundling effect of decreasing competition is most detrimental to small business contractors that have the expertise and possibly even lower rates to perform on smaller pieces of the work; however, cannot because the work gets bundled into a contract that potentially only a large business can handle.

Bundled contracts like EDUCATE do carry with them small business subcontracting plans under which the awarded contractor, in this example, PEROT, is responsible for meeting the government small business goals. Yet, this does not guarantee that small businesses will be able to participate in bidding or winning as many opportunities as they might have if the smaller IT contracts within the Department of Education (or any other Department for that matter) were not bundled for the next ten years.

The use of contract bundling provides another reason why solid market research is so important to small businesses working within the federal marketplace. It is essential that companies know what is happening within their target agencies and how those actions that can potentially affect their business prospects.


 

The long awaited Refresh #12 of the Mission Oriented Business Integrated Services (MOBIS) Schedule, solicitation number TFTP-MC-000874-B was released on January 30, 2008. Offerors using the previous version of the solicitation, Refresh #11, WILL NOT be accepted after February 29, 2008.

If you are currently working on or are planning to submit a MOBIS offer in the near future and will not do so by February 29, 2008, it is imperative that you download and read the revised solicitation to prepare the new and entirely different offer. Some of the major changes include:

  • Twenty five different solicitation files
  • The structure of the offer
  • Numerous clause changes
  • Technical and price proposal instruction changes
  • Required pursuit of additional Special Items Numbers (SINs) in order to qualify for award under Training SIN 874-5.

But perhaps the most significant changes are those to the SINs themselves:

  • SIN 874-6 is now Acquisition Management Support.
  • And SIN 874-7 is now Program and Project Management Services
  • All SIN descriptions (with the exception of SIN 874-99) have been revised.

To view the newly defined SIN descriptions click here, or to download a complete version of the solicitation for MOBIS TFTP-MC-000874-B (Refresh 12) and see the changes for yourself click here.

If you have questions about the new solicitation or find weeding through the various file and structure changes a less than cost-efficient task for you and your company, please call us at 202-234-8933 to discuss how we can help you quickly accomplish your goals of becoming a MOBIS contractor.

 

  Think You Have to be in Washington DC to Find Government Customers?

THINK AGAIN! Outside of the Washington DC Metropolitan Region there are a number of cities were federal agencies and employees are located and where contracting efforts take place. A recent survey by Washington Technology assessed the top 25 cities (outside of DC) with the largest federal employment numbers. Check out the list -
The locations may surprise you!		  
     


     


Keep us in mind for help with your government contracts.

1401 14th Street, NW
Third Floor
Washington, DC 20005

202-234-8933 phone
202-234-8935 fax
global@globalservicesinc.com
www.globalservicesinc.com 
 

  
   

Newsflash

  
   
Recertification Rules for Small Businesses

As many of you are aware, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has developed new rules for how a company can use a small business designation to win government contracts as well as how agencies can use these designation to reach their procurement goals. The new rules state that small business contract holders must recertify their size status any time they buy another company, merge with another company, or are acquired by another company. In addition, small business contract holders must recertify their small business status every five years of a long-term contract.

These regulations take affect in June 2008.

The complete text of the new rules can be found by clicking here. 		 
     
 

Client Corner

  
   
Does Global Services offer discounts, etc. to make it easier for small businesses to financially handle acquiring your services?
 
Global Services offers small business discounts for almost all of its service offerings. We also split and/or spread most payments throughout a project’s life cycle to make cash flow management easier for our clients. Furthermore, we customize bundling discounts when clients purchase multiple services, such as acquiring more than one GSA Schedule concurrently. If you are interested, we can provide specifics on a case-by-case basis.
  
     
   
 

February 29, 2008
Washington, DC Chapter of SCORE presents "GSA Schedules 101." This course is from 9:00 AM to Noon. Please contact SCORE at www.scoredc.org or 202-272-0390.

March 14, 2008
Washington, DC Chapter of SCORE presents "Preparing a Winning Federal Proposal," This course is from 9:00 AM to Noon. Please contact SCORE at www.scoredc.org or 202-272-0390.


March 13, 2008
Global Services presents our GSA Schedule Post-Award Training Seminar: “Staying Compliant and Making Your GSA Contract Work" This course is from 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM and will be held in our offices at 1401 14th, Street, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC, 20005. Please click here to register or call 202-234-8933. Space is extremely limited, so register today.
 

  
             


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