41 Best in Class (BIC) Contract Vehicle Opportunities for Small Business Federal Contractors

In this new webinar (see below), Neil McDonnell introduces Best in Class (BIC) Contract Vehicles and presents key information on each of the 41 Best in Class contract vehicles.

Category management is transforming government contracting and yet most of the available training focuses exclusively on the government’s needs and how it will impact their buying process. For example, Acquistition Gateway helps acquisition professionals and federal buyers connect with resources, tools and each other to improve acquisition government-wide.

As illustrated in this Category Management Vision presentation from the 2018 Navy Gold Coast Small Business Procurement conference, Category Management will turn procurement UPSIDE DOWN!

But what about the hundreds of thousands of Small Business contractors?

How will Category Management and BIC vehicles change the Selling Process?

How should Small Business owners adapt? That’s the question! 

In 2019 the HUBZone Chamber of Commerce will focus on helping all small businesses –not just HUBZone-certified companies –understand the evolution in Category Management and Best in Class, specifically as it impacts the individual small business government contractor.

About Category Management

There are 19 separate categories including nine Department of Defense-centric (uniquely DoD purchases) and ten categories for common goods and services.

Two thirds of the federal spend each year or roughly $300 billion dollars falls under ‘common goods and services’.

Watch the Chamber’s Category Management Webinar to learn more about CM.

About BIC Contract Vehicles

What is Best in Class?

Best in Class contract vehicles represent the new method of government contracting. Best-in-Class (BIC) is a government-wide designation for acquisition solutions that can be used by multiple agencies and satisfies key criteria defined by Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Widespread adoption of Best-in-Class solutions should: 

• maximize the government’s shared purchasing power, allowing agencies to leverage volume discounts (buying power lever)
• help agencies operate more efficiently by reducing administrative costs and contract duplication; and
• expand collection and sharing of government-wide buying data, leading to better-informed business decisions.

'Managed' vs 'Unmanaged' Contracts

Contract vehicles typically fall within two group – 'managed' or 'unmanaged' contracts.

'Unmanaged' Contracts

Unmanaged contract vehicles are called Tier 0 vehicles. In this case, agency-spend is not aligned to category management principals, typically contracts that do not fit into the other three tiers.

With more than 400,000 contracts in Tier 0, it represents the 'wild west' of government contracting. The professional services category alone is reputed to have 185,000 contracts. There are currently over 2,500 MACs or multiple award contracts. These are the IDIQs that are awarded to multiple vendors. There are over 1,700 active contract vehicles in the VA.

You can see why the government is trying to streamline toward improved efficiency.

'Managed' Contracts

The next three tiers are managed – hence the title Spend Under Management or SUM.

These contracts have reached a level of maturity based on defined standards and guiding principles.

Tier 1 Spend Under Management contracts are typically contract vehicles used within a single agency.

Tier 2 Spend Under Management contracts have the capability to be used in more than one agency, but not necessarily government-wide (GWACs).

Tier 3 Spend Under Management contracts are called Best in Class. These contracts are all GWACs, meaning any agency can use them. Learn more about:

• Alliant 2 Contract Vehicle and Awardees

Small businesses need to attach themselves to each and every BIC vehicle the government uses to buy whatever their business sells.

1. Become a prime as soon as you qualify
2. Become a named subcontractor as soon as possible
3. Become an unnamed subcontractor immediately

Watch the full webinar to learn about each of the 41 Best in Class Vehicles

For each vehicle, Neil provides comprehensive details including–

• Category Title
• BIC title
• contract ceiling amount or expected spend
• which agency has the lead for this contract vehicle
• expected period of performance end date/s (when there are option years)
• how many companies were awarded a prime contractor position on this vehicle and how many are small businesses
• key points of contact (as available)
• website URL

Each category is further broken down into sub-categories and within sub-category, there are logical functional groupings. 

ABOUT THE GovCon Chamber of Commerce

In FY2018, the HUBZone (now GovCon) Chamber of Commerce helped push almost $10 billion dollars to HUBZone small businesses. This was a 35% increase over the previous year.

We achieved success not by blaming Congress or federal agencies, but by teaching small businesses like yours that you really do control your future.

We held over 250 events in 2018 focused on sources sought opportunities. After all, the best time to pursue an opportunity is during the sources sought phase while the government is still open to suggestions on how best to procure products and services.

STAY IN TOUCH

This free educational webinar represents approximately 100 hours including video preparation, interviews and original research. If you find this presentation valuable, please reach out to Neil directly and share your comments and feedback.

The GovCon Chamber is not SBA or government-funded and provides enormous content for free to all small businesses looking to succeed as federal government small business contractors. Neil believes that price should not be a barrier to access and that no one should have to pay simply to learn the rules of the road.