http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com Just another WordPress weblog Mon, 31 May 2010 19:49:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/the-intelligence-community-and-small-business-contracting-%e2%80%93-small-business-set-asides/ http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/the-intelligence-community-and-small-business-contracting-%e2%80%93-small-business-set-asides/#comments Mon, 31 May 2010 19:49:14 +0000 admin http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/?p=50 The Role of Small Business in Government Contracting Contracting for the Federal Government is a major industry and small businesses play an important part. Because small businesses tend to be more innovative and agile, they provide goods and services that the Government requires on a cost effective basis. Small businesses contract directly with the Government (usually under set aside programs) or as subcontractors through large prime contractors. When subcontracting, small businesses are relied on to provide unique technical expertise, knowledge of a particular customer or recruiting capabilities as added value to the efforts of a prime contractor. In addition, as a matter of policy and to further encourage competition specific small business guidelines have been put for the by administration since the end of World War II. The Small Business Administration (SBA) was created to help small business grow their Federal Contracting business. Included in the many SBA programs are loans to small business, contracting set aside programs and monitoring of federal Contract Goals for prime contracting and subcontracting. The programs and goals served to stimulate a robust small business contracting environment and many experts believe benefited Federal Government Agencies as well as small businesses. Recently however, small business has suffered as a result of a number of factors. Based upon reduced contracting budgets, a general mistrust of the contracting community, increased expansion of government hires and general growth of the federal and state governments, contracting activity was significantly reduced. Direct contracts to small business were replaced by insourcing (bringing work back into Federal Agencies to create work for newly hired government employees) and the resulting cancellation of large prime contracts has a disproportionate reducing of the small business work force. When prime contracts were cut, small business suffered. Recent Administration Guidelines – Policy Issues In April 2010, perhaps realizing that an innovative and agile small business community was a national asset to be preserved, the Obama Admistration concluded that small business contracting goals were being missed by a wide margin and commissioned a special panel to review the problem and develop solutions. The impact of this move should prove to rejuvenate the policy of encouraging small business contracting and hopefully will improve the business environment for small business. Small Business Contracting and the Intelligence Community Presently, only Intelligence Agencies associated with the Department of Defense (NSA, DIA, NGA and the services) have small business programs and contracting goals. The goals are estimated to be about 23% of all contracting business set aside for small business. Civilian Intelligence Agencies like CIA and NRO do not have small business contracting goals or programs. How the National Security Agency is Different from Other Intelligence Agencies The National Security Agency has proved to be the most aggressive Intelligence Agency in developing programs to meet small business contracting goals, although the agency still has its own style of contracting and buying patterns. The NSA faces unique technical demands and its research and development focus coupled with agency size and increasing flow of raw intelligence, offers excellent contracting opportunity for small business contractors. ]]> http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/the-intelligence-community-and-small-business-contracting-%e2%80%93-small-business-set-asides/feed/ 0 http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/hello-world/ http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/hello-world/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 23:33:25 +0000 admin http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/?p=1 http://www.theshawmarkgroup.com/hello-world/feed/ 1