Most public bids have been pre-sold by vendors to varying degrees and often several pre-sellers will be the only companies that really have a chance of winning. Experienced contractors also know that bidding opportunities for a reoccurring contract are inherently biased toward the incumbent contractor—the company holding the contract. Incumbent contractors win rebids of their [...]
Two myths about the federal market persist in the commercial sector. They are as follows: Just go to the federal market and pick the low-hanging fruit; and The fruit is ripe and you can pick it quickly. The federal market is exceptionally lucrative, provides great leverage and is self sustaining. That’s the good news. The [...]
The federal market is always changing and IDIQs are no exception. Major shifts in the market include: using of large umbrella contracts (IDIQs) to purchase goods and services that could be competed individually(this is known as bundling) justifying sole source contracts by citing an “urgent and compelling need” extending large contracts as a “bridge,” rather [...]
Contracting officers are dedicated in their responsibility to follow federal purchasing rules. The rules allow less than full and open competition depending on the size of the purchase and the need for speed and efficiency in making a buy. Responsibilities of Contracting Officers Legal responsibility for a contract (signs contract) Ensuring that requirements for competitive [...]
Everyone has heard the stories of delivery vehicles screaming down the Beltway only to just make or miss a proposal filing deadline. Or the stories of proposals that never made their destination due to mishandling by delivery services. Why do companies put themselves in this dreadful, high-pressure situation? Why are hundreds of thousands of dollars lost? There [...]
The crown jewels of any federal service contractor are the company’s existing service contracts. Existing service contracts are so valuable that they are virtually irreplaceable. Such contracts are the source of, among other things, the following: Highly probability “re-wins” of the extension of these contracts Unexpected revenue resulting from increases in scopes of work New [...]
Most companies offer services to GSA on an hourly-rate basis. And then federal customers demand fixed-price bids based on your awarded hourly GSA rates. Most experienced federal contractors know that the hourly rate really doesn’t matter that much unless a contract specifies time and material invoicing. It’s a dilemma that has always existed in federal [...]
Agencies sometimes prefer their own homegrown IDIQs. Bureaucracies are bureaucracies worldwide- they tend to be parochial, self-serving, and mistrustful of outsiders. It is no different in the world of IDIQs. Most IDIQs are created and awarded by agencies at the cabinet or subcabinet levels, e.g., the Department of Homeland Security or the Coast Guard within [...]
Proactive methods have governed sales approaches for products and services since the days of Willy Lowman. The same basic principles remain the keys to success in federal sales. Examples: Sales Approach Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 Passive Monitor public bids for opportunities someone else has sold but are available for bid Blast email sales [...]
The amount of competition in federal purchasing is rooted in politics—but what isn’t? The size of the federal bureaucracy and the urgency of trying to solve current world problems have made the job of a federal acquisition official nearly impossible. Federal procurement rules discussed in this book are partly designed to assist federal buyers in [...]
We can’t emphasize enough that IDIQ contracts are becoming more prevalent and larger by the day. IDIQ contract ceilings now exceed $30 billion and individual task orders under IDIQs commonly exceed $1 billion. Government procurement experts are predicting that 2012 will be the year of the IDIQ contract. For example, they estimate that the Department [...]
