SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 24-28, 2023

It’s Friday, Readers! Hope everyone is ready for the weekend. The NFL Draft is right down the road in Kansas City this weekend and if you’re an NFL fan (as is almost required in Kansas City), I’m sure you are anxiously awaiting to see if your favorite players will be selected. What better way to welcome the weekend than with a bit of football excitement and a review of what’s been happening in the government contracting world?

In this week’s roundup, there were several articles concerning DoD contracts and some cautionary tales on why defrauding the federal government is a really bad decision. Enjoy your weekend!

Continue reading

SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 10-14, 2023

Happy Friday, Readers! Time for your week in review. The spring trees are in full bloom here in Lawrence, Kansas this week and they couldn’t be more beautiful! Other than allergy sufferers, we certainly are enjoying the beauty of spring and hope you are as well.

The federal government contracting world is also very active at this time. There was a lot of buzz this week surrounding the Defense Department and how it can immediately modernize acquisition in addition to a release of the department’s finance study showing how large versus small federal contractors are faring. We’ve included those articles, and a few others we hope you find of interest, below. Enjoy your weekend!

Continue reading

SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 20-24, 2023

Happy Friday, Readers! Can you believe that February is almost over? I guess that means we are one month closer to Spring. Stay safe if you are in the areas of the country getting pounded by more snowfall. In the middle of the country, the thermometer has been going up and down so much on a daily basis, we just never know what we will get. That’s Kansas for you.

We have included a few news articles on the federal government contracting issues this week. There is some good thoughts this week on how contractors can approach the debt ceiling standoff, as well as federal diversity and inclusivity goals. Enjoy and we hope you have a great weekend.

Continue reading

SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 13-17, 2023

Happy Friday and happy belated Valentine’s Day. We hope you had a great week and found some time to celebrate with your loved ones. We have certainly been in celebration mode with the Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl on Sunday. What an exciting game and what a great season!

There was a lot of news from the federal government contracting world this week, as well. We have included a few articles that we hope will be of interest to you below, including those on small business contracting involvement and CIO-SP4 protests. Enjoy your weekend.

Continue reading

DoD to Utilize Category Management for Procurements, But this time to Increase Small Business Contracts

Last month, the Department of Defense (DoD), released a memorandum to its contracting specialists asking them to utilize the popular but controversial category management tactics to attempt to increase small business participation in DoD procurements. Some have said that category management tends to decrease small business spend by, for instance, pushing procurement to larger contracting vehicles, so this memo attempts to turn conventional wisdom on its head. The DoD’s intentions with this memorandum will likely increase use of category management at the largest governmental buyers, despite this contracting trend being criticized as ineffective or counter productive to increasing small business participation. Below we dig into what the memo says.

Continue reading

SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 6-10, 2023

Happy Friday, Readers! We hope you had a great week and are looking forward to a fun Super Bowl Sunday. If you aren’t a Chiefs or Eagles fan, there’s always the food and halftime show to look forward to! Enjoy the weekend.

This week in federal government contracting saw an interesting perspective on contracting law and national power, new cloud computing and IT policies and initiatives, and AI potentially helping to write contracts.

Continue reading

SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 2-6, 2023

Happy New Year! We hope you were able to enjoy the holidays with friends and family and are now ready to jump into 2023. A recent cold front has moved out of our area, and I think I speak for everyone here when I say we are grateful to get back to our normal temperatures.

There was a lot of activity in the federal government contracting arena this week. Below are some articles that we think are noteworthy. Enjoy your weekend.

Continue reading