Reasons Federal Buyers Use GSA Schedules

Reasons Federal Buyers Use GSA Schedules

In the US today we have seen a shift from businesses that have been fortunate enough to adapt to meet their client’s needs in order to stay open and those that were not.  This is actually a consistent theme in federal contracting.  Many firms never engage in obtaining a GSA Schedule because the reality is, it is a challenging process.  A GSA Schedule essentially shifts a great deal of the work burden from the government contracting officer to the schedule holder and many firms can’t or don’t make the investment in a GSA Schedule Contract.

Result:  Only 4% of Small Businesses Obtain a GSA Schedule

This shift in burden in the marketplace is found by small businesses to be so overwhelming that out of 310,000 small businesses in eligible NAICS codes to be doing work with the federal government only 13,700 have worked through the process of obtaining a GSA Schedule.  This represents only 4% of small Businesses.

This week I am going to go over the benefits to the Federal Buyers in using GSA Schedules.  These are the reasons why the GSA drives work to either your business or a competitors.

1. No Posting/Publication or FedBizOpps and time consuming synopsis requirement.
2. The flexibility to add agency-specific clauses and provisions.
3. Contracts/Pricing is already determined to be reasonable.
4. The ability to place an order of almost any size/quantity.
5. GSA’s electronic tools assist with market research, dissemination of RFQs, and ordering.
6. Recurring requirements can be satisfied with flexible schedule blanket purchase agreements rather than agency indefinite quantity contracts.
7. Agencies retain maximum flexibility for “Best Value” source selections.
8. GSA Schedules are higher priority sources that should be considered before soliciting open-market commercial sources.
9. The competitive requirements that are statutory for any procurement have already been met when buying off a GSA Schedule Contract.
10. Large pool of available contactors offering a wide variety of commercial services and products.
11. GSA Schedule permit for task orders that are labor hours and time and material.
12. Agencies can identify and make progress with small business and other socioeconomic objectives in the procurement.
13. GSA Schedule Contractors have the ability to join forces and team to create a solution to more complex requirements.
14. Saves time and is simpler than other more complex FAR Requirements.
15. GSA Schedules vendors are required to support the use of Government Purchase Cards.
16. GSA provided ongoing training and is constantly courting federal employees to use the Schedule System.

Results for Firms with a GSA Advantage