Will Government Buyers Finally Face Micros?
Apr 21st, 2008 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: OperationsIf you want to talk small business policy, one perpetual issue is small businesses and federal procurement. Unfortunately, federal procurement is a perpetual issue because procurement officers assume microbusinesses can’t fill a government contract and most microbusinesses don’t want to put themselves through the paperwork-intensive, complicated process of selling to the feds. But how is the government supposed to meet their small business procurement goals — currently to spend 23% of contract dollars with small firms, with legislation pending to raise that to 30% — if the government buyers refuse to talk to 90% of the small businesses in the country? There’s much that could be done to simplify the process and, with appropriate training, perhaps those procurement officers could learn how to do business with microbusinesses. We are capable of accomplishing much, much more than our size implies.
