Category Archives: Federal Government Contracting

SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 5-9, 2024

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Happy Friday Readers. We hope you all have had a great week. We are enjoying some milder winter weather here in Kansas finally. We still have a bit to go before spring, but it feels like it is right around the corner. We will be following our KC chiefs as they look to defend their Super Bowl title!

Enjoy the weekend and we also hope you will enjoy reading the articles below, regarding federal government contracting this week. Some highlights include more on the push to increase small business participation, and new legislation that will have an impact on contractors.

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GAO: Brand Name or Equal RFQ Must Explicitly State All Salient Characteristics

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Solicitations for brand name or equal products are commonly used by contracting officers to ensure that the products procured via the contract meet minimum requirements. However, as one agency found, the salient characteristics required to meet the minimum requirements must be explicitly stated in the solicitation. And, evaluating the product on any characteristics that are not included in the solicitation, even if incorporated by reference to the name brand item, can lead to an improper exclusion of offerors from competition.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: Jan. 28-Feb. 2, 2024

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Happy February! Our Kansas City Chiefs have once again managed to make it back into the Super Bowl and we couldn’t be happier about it! Whether you’re a Chiefs fan, a 49ers fan or a Swiftie, it’s sure to be a good one! Start gathering those favorite snack recipes and get out the lucky sports gear, folks!

This week in federal government contracting news had some important updates, including a new GSA schedule catalog platform, a report on savings in software purchases, and a revamped SBA training program for small businesses.

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OMB Issues Command to Increase Small Business Participation on MACs

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The White House has issued a memorandum that calls for specific procedures for Increasing Small Business Participation on Multiple-Award Contracts. To that end, OMB has recommended steps such as increasing small business order set-asides and maximizing small business set-asides across multiple types of contracts. Perhaps most importantly, OMB has directed federal agencies to apply the small business Rule of Two for all orders, which should has the potential of leading to an increase in small business set-asides. Below, we dive into these new recommendations.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 22-26, 2024

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Happy Friday! We hope you had a productive week. We are slowly exiting the deep freeze that we have been enduring the past few weeks, here in the midwest. We’ve had snow, ice, rain and sub degree temperatures! Not fun! We are looking forward to seeing the sun again and warmer days. Hope you are doing well and looking forward to a nice weekend.

This week in federal government contracting news saw some interesting stories, including a push to streamline contracting and GSA not following procurement rules.

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CMMC 2.0 and You: A Look at the Department of Defense’s Proposed New Cybersecurity Rules

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In 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the development of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Program, which was then implemented in 2020 as an interim rule. We blogged about that way back in 2020. This program was designed to give a certification to contractors based on the depth and effectiveness of their cybersecurity systems to help ensure that contractors implement required security measures. As DoD put it, “[t]he CMMC model consists of maturity processes and cybersecurity best practices from multiple cybersecurity standards, frameworks, and other references, as well as inputs from the broader community.” In late December 2023, the DoD issued proposed changes to the CMMC program for “CMMC 2.0,” a plan that DoD began work on back in 2021. In this post, we will take a general look at these proposed changes.

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SDVOSB Updates: SBA VetCert Achievements, JV Certification, and NDAA Contracting Goal

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It’s been one year since the U.S. Small business Administration (SBA) took over the federal government’s veteran-owned small business contracting program from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and a lot has happened in that amount of time. Here, we discuss how SBA has handled the Veteran Small Business Certification Program in the first year and some of SBA’s achievments. And in other big SDVOSB news, the federal government will be providing more contracts for veteran-owned entities under the National Defense Authorization Act’s increased contracting goals.

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