Forecasting for Fiscal Year 2015 has begun!

With the fiscal year starting up, contractors should be on the lookout for procurement forecasts for fiscal year 2015. Major federal agencies are posting procurement forecasts that can help your business plan for bids and proposals for FY15. www.Acquisition.gov is a great place to start when looking for forecasts. You can search by agency forecast or by business opportunities to find what your business should be anticipating.

Forecasting is also a great opportunity to be reach out to contracting officers who are working on opportunities that are of interest to you. Reaching out to contracting officers is one of the best ways to connect with the people who will be advising end-users and making decisions about proposal requirements. Contracting officers are always aware that specialized contractors have knowledge on subjects they may not and will require help writing overly technical solicitation if know a competent contractor who can help.  Take a look at our webinar: Contracting Officer Best Practices.

Forecasts offer a wealth of information for potential contractors. You can learn about the method of procurement, possible ceiling values, and incumbents. Method of procurement is vital knowledge when building an approach since if the opportunity is going through GSA, you have a wealth knowledge about pricing and competition at your disposal. Ceiling values are important factors, showing you an acceptable range to price your bid. If you are over the ceiling value, most likely you won’t win and it gives you time to adjust. Incumbents are a huge source of information as well. Your business can find out details about the work and the agency by getting in touch with the incumbent and learning about how they performed the work.

Most importantly, the key to good forecasting strategy is follow up, follow up, follow up! Some opportunities will be listed for the end of fiscal year 2015 or even the start of fiscal year 2016. The sure-fire trick is to keep your businesses’ name fresh in the mind of contracting officers. Follow up every couple months. Find out how you can help. Inquire whether any other opportunities are coming up last minute.

Procurement forecasts are a great (and often underutilized) tool in the contractor toolbox. Use it to its full advantage.

Special requirements for GSA Schedules

Last week we discussed the MOBIS requirements and received a lot of emails requesting more information about other requirements for different schedules. I thought it would be beneficial to just go over a few requirements that are applied to all schedules:
Financials: for every offer a company must submit two years of balance sheets and income statements. You will not be awarded a schedule if you do not complete this requirement. If there are any negatives on your financials, you must explain why.
Invoices: If your company is submitting a Commercial Pricelist you will need to submit invoices for pretty much every line item on that CPL. The invoices must be within 3 years of submitting.
Labor Categories: for every labor category submitted, there must be a description, minimum education requirement, and minimum years experience attached.
Pathways Training Certificate
FOR NON-VA OFFERS:

o   Digital Certificate: every offer that is not a VA offer must have proof of a digital certificate. If you do not have a digital certificate than you will not be able to submit your offer

o   Open Ratings Report

Again, please let us know if you have any questions. We’d be happy to help explain the requirements in more depth because really this blog just scratches the surface.

Feel free to email us at info@gvoconsvcs.com if there is anything else you’d like more clarification on!

MOBIS Requirements

Within the last 12 months the GSA has become very strict with all Schedule 874 MOBIS offers. The review process can take some time and rejections are unfortunately pretty common. Why is this? How can rejection be avoided? Well, I’m not certain on how it can be completely avoided because every Contracting Officer is different BUT there are some important requirements that must not be overlooked when submitting your MOBIS offer to the GSA.

The GSA will mainly look at financials and past performance. When applying for a MOBIS contract the company must submit two years’ worth of balance sheets and income statements—NO TAX RETURNS. If a company submits tax returns they will be rejected. If there are any negatives on the financials those must be thoroughly explained. The GSA will break down the financials and if there is anything fishy they will find it and ask about it.

The next chunk of red tape for MOBIS is the past performance. A company must submit two statements of work that were conducted within the last two years and include narratives on said projects. This is where it gets tricky. The company must show that they helped solve a problem and did not just refer their client to another industry such as IT, financial work, etc. There can be no mention of another industry in these SOWs because the GSA will say “why don’t you apply for a different schedule since your company focuses on it so much.” If the company is not “within scope” then goodbye MOBIS. This means ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REFRENECES. This will be an AUTOMATIC rejection and the company will be referred to Schedule 70 (which is usually a faster option anyways).

Obviously, there are a million other reasons that could produce a rejection but it’s important to know if the above requirements are not meant the company should not even waste their time with MOBIS.

If you are unsure whether your company can fall under MOBIS, PLEASE give us a call and we’ll see where your organization can fit. If not MOBIS there are 39 other schedules to look at. 

Who's Spending Money?

Do you know who the biggest spenders are in the Federal Government?

From the desk of Brian Purgert, President

Back in 1985 when Government Contract Services was conceived, there was a lot less “red tape” built around government sales. My brother Bob and I knew that helping businesses sell to the government was a tough job, but we had the knowledge to do it right. As a small company with less than a dozen people, we managed millions of dollars’ worth of federal contracts with ease. Our clients were educated and successful. We had it made – the feds never stopped spending, so we had a lifelong customer at our fingertips!

Over the years, we began to realize how truly important our knowledge was. It quickly became a lifeline for businesses in need of a constant revenue stream, a way to keep their workers employed, and a way to put food on the table for their families. Now more than ever, the significance of our expertise is used to help companies with integrity generate honest revenue. 

My team and I are dedicated to creating jobs and improving the economy in this country. If we can help businesses understand the “red tape” involved in selling to Uncle Sam and build their organization around quality products/services, we can increase their government sales. If we can help align organizations with fair market prices and top-notch service, we can encouraging long-term cost savings for the government. If we all do our part to promote healthy business ethics, we can drastically improve the future of our government and our economy. 

Research Wins Bids

We are constantly asked both by current clients and potential clients, “how do we win government business?”. The question is always posed as though there is some circle of secrecy around the subject and if we give out the magic answer we’ll be thrown out of the club. Well, here’s the truth; the most important variable to wining government business is RESEARCH.

Research is time consuming and not all companies have the time and resources to allocate for the necessary research needed to be successful in the government marketplace. Here’s a small snapshot of some data that is being gathered by successful government contractors.

·         What agencies have bought your products and services in the past?

·         Are they planning on buying more in the future?

·         How much did agencies pay for similar products and services?

·         What are the agencies’ goals in procuring those particular products and services?

·         Who is your direct competition in the government marketplace?

·         Are they successful across multiple agencies or just with one?

·         Is your pricing higher or lower than your closest competitor?

·         Why is your pricing higher or lower than your closet competitor?

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. To be successful, there is nothing more important than knowing your market, knowing your buyer, and knowing your competition.

But there are challenges that come with this. Finding all the data isn't always straight forward. Most agencies have forecasts online looking forward to the next 7 years. Some don’t have anything showing. Finding competitors and pricing requires sifting through past awarded contracts and seeing how much the government paid. Some contractors use GSA pricing as a benchmark for comparison even on the open market.

The government in rolling out new tools with the 18F program to make this research easier for contracts but until then doing the research is anyone’s best chance at winning government contracts. 

Manufacturer Part Numbers and UPCs

Most likely you have all seen the emails from the GSA threatening a MAS Mod that will force every vendor on the GSA with products to go into their price list and make sure that the part numbers listed on GSA Advantage are the manufacturer part numbers.

Since that MAS Mod has not come to fruition the GSA recently sent an email out to vendors asking for their help in improving product data on GSA Advantage. This means making sure that your company is using manufacturer part numbers and UPC numbers, if available, for all products that are currently on schedule and moving forward. For some companies who do not offer a wide range of products accomplishing this will be a rather easy task. However, for others this is a large undertaking.

So why is the GSA pushing so hard for this to happen? Let’s take a look at two companies, one that uses the manufacturer numbers and one that does not.

I will use a Rubbermaid 35G garbage can as an example.

When doing a search by name of the product you see that I get a wide range of manufacturers and manufacturer numbers as well.

 

 

If I do a search using the mfg part number the results change a little bit.

As you can see by the two pictures, when using the manufacturer part number the contracting officer is given more accurate results. If your company is wondering why sales of certain products have not been up to par, take a look at whether or not the part numbers you have listed correspond to the manufacturer’s.

So in turn, helping the GSA improve GSA Advantage is helping your company’s products become easier to find.

If you’re unsure where to start or just need help with your large list of products, give us a call 216-662-7044.