Federal contracting basics

When you are discussing your offerings with a potential government customer, the government manager is likely, at some point, to ask, “And, how can I get to you?” What the government customer means is this: “If I decide that I would like to buy what you are selling, what contractual process would I use?”

There are several possibilities: The government might have to participate in an “open market, open competition” to find a supplier for the product or service you want to provide. There are two problems with this procedure from your point of view. First, it might take a year or more to close the deal; second, the winner might not be you, but someone else entirely.

As a matter of law or of regulation, there are certain procurements which must be fulfilled using this process. Such a requirement can derive from the dollar value of the procurement or from the nature of the tasks to be performed. And these standards will vary from agency to agency. In general, if you are talking about a very large government procurement, for example, providing long distance telephone service for a Cabinet Department (e.g. Department of Defense), or a new weapon system, you can expect competitive bidding, with all the requisite announcements, bidders’ meetings, evaluation panels, negotiations, etc., that are mandatory before award. These procedures must be followed very strictly, in case there is a challenge — and these days it is very likely that any such award will be challenged. Also, “very large” procurements are relative. Some small agencies consider procurements “very large” that larger agencies consider routine. We recently won a competitive procurement from a small agency for about $3 million, and at the same time were awarded about the same amount in contracts from a much larger agency using a MOBIS award (see below). The difference in bidding procedures was dictated by the size of the procurements the two agencies were used to.

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