Committed To Small Business

(Its entire 109 pages can be found at http://www.eps.gov/spg/DOC/OS/OAM/CM1301-03-RP-0019/Attachments.html).

The new program, like the original, will be IT-focused. This new vehicle has the same goals: stimulating those same businesses, also known as 8(a) businesses and providing various agencies within the Commerce Department with top-notch IT services and solutions. Eligible companies include minority and women-owned businesses, and veteran-owned companies. But NextGen is slightly, and significantly, different from the original vehicle.

For example, the multiple-award contract has a ceiling of $8 billion during a period stretching 10 years. The first COMMITS vehicle has a ceiling of $1.5 billion. Also, NexGen has a new category for companies with more than 1,500 employees. The structure of the vehicle is made up of three tiers. Tier I includes partners certified at $6 million to $12.5 million in revenue size. These companies will be able to compete on task orders with a life-cycle value of equal to or less than $5 million. Tier II is made up of partners certified at $21 million, or partners that have 500 employees. Those firms can compete on task orders with a life-cycle value between $5 million and $70 million. Finally, Tier III partners--those with 1,500 employees--will only be allowed to compete on task orders with a life-cycle value of more than $70 million.

The addition of the largest category is an important change. During the first go-around under COMMITS, some companies had to exit the vehicle because they simply became too big. Sometimes this growth was organic, but oftentimes it was because a smaller firm was absorbed during a merger with a larger competitor. Now, companies will be able to grow inside the vehicle, but once they reach critical mass, they will be removed from the small-business class and vie for awards with similar-sized companies.

In addition, each contractor will have to recertify its small-business status every three years. Those last two changes are extremely important, because they validate a complaint that many small firms doing business with the government have had for years: Many of the players are misrepresenting themselves as small.

By creating the larger category, the government is allowing the big boys to play, but not at the expense of their younger brothers (or, I suppose, sisters, in the cases of women-owned businesses). In fact, we published an article in GovernmentVAR, "With Government Contracts, Size Does Matter" (March 31, page 16). The article addresses just how VARs and vendors get pinched in the federal-government market. (You can access that story at http://www.varbusiness.com/sections/governmentvar.)

Do you have experience with COMMITS that you'd like to share? VARBusiness is curious about just how successful the program is with our readers.

Drop me a line at [email protected].