Should a new small firm chase a GSA schedule?

Usually not first. It takes months, it expects commercial pricing history, and holding one does not make anybody buy from you. The firms for whom it pays off early are those selling commercial products or standard labour categories that agencies already buy this way. Everybody else is better served by winning something small directly, or by subcontracting to a holder, and getting the schedule once there is demand to serve.

How do I find out when a big vehicle is being recompeted?

From the vehicle's own end date, which is in the award record, and from the presolicitation and market research notices that precede it by six to eighteen months. A vehicle recompete is the single highest-value date in this module because it is the one moment the holder list reopens.

Can I see the orders placed under a vehicle?

After the fact, yes. Orders appear in the spending record with the parent contract identifier on them, even though they were never advertised. Before the fact, generally no, unless you are a holder receiving the fair opportunity notice.

Is a BPA worth having?

A blanket purchase agreement with an office that really buys from you is one of the best things a small supplier can hold, because ordering under it is fast and the competition is narrow. A BPA nobody orders from is filing. The difference is whether the office set it up because it has recurring demand.

I hold a vehicle and never get asked. What now?

Holders who win orders are almost always the ones the ordering office already knows. Find which offices order through your vehicle, introduce yourself to them specifically, and respond quickly and completely to every fair opportunity notice even when you expect to lose the first few.

Course, module 5 of 16

Vehicles, schedules and how orders are really placed

A large share of federal money never appears as a public solicitation. It leaves as an order against a contract that was competed once, years ago, among a fixed set of holders. If you are not one of them you did not lose the work. You never saw it.

the only date a company on the outside can plan around

By the end of this module you will be able to

Tell an IDIQ, a schedule, a BPA and a government-wide contract apart, and say who can order from each
Read an award record and see which vehicle an order came from
Explain fair opportunity, which is how an order is competed among holders
Choose between getting on a vehicle yourself and teaming with somebody who already holds one
Judge whether a given vehicle is worth the months it takes to get onto

Why this exists at all

Running a full competition takes months and costs the government real money in staff time. For work an agency will buy repeatedly, or for commodities and services that many agencies buy, doing that competition once and then ordering against the result is obviously cheaper.

So the government competes a vehicle: a contract, often with no guaranteed work, that establishes who may be asked and on what terms. Then it places orders against it, either to one holder or by a quick competition among several. The order is the money. The vehicle is the right to be asked.

This is not a loophole and it is not new. It is the dominant shape of federal buying for services and for repeat commodities, and it is the single biggest reason a new supplier watching the notice feed concludes there is nothing in their code.

Keep reading

The rest of this module opens with your name and email

All sixteen modules open on this device for about six months. No card and no password.

Still to come in this module

The kinds of vehicle, and who may order from each
Fair opportunity, which is the competition you do not see
How you get onto one
Working out whether a vehicle is worth it
Reading the record to find the vehicles that matter to you
The words in this module, defined
Questions at this stage