GSA Schedule spending on small businesses

True or False: Small business GSA Schedule procurement spending is highly stratified with the top 5 small businesses accounting for 23% of all reported small business GSA Schedule dollars in FY 2001.

Picking up where we left off from last week's quiz, we know that small businesses overall tend to benefit from the use of GSA Schedules. In exploring various markets with FPC, however, we frequently find that certain small business markets are overwhelmingly dominated by just a handful of small firms. Is this the case with GSA Schedule contract spending?

To find the answer to this week's quiz, fire up your FPC 2001 application, clear all existing filter criteria and call up either the Advanced Search Screen or the Search Wizard. Select the Contract Group of fields and, from the available list of Contract fields, choose Kind of Contract. Specify G as your search criteria in the Kind of Contract field by either typing the letter into the available search box or selecting it off the menu. Apply this criteria to your filter.

After selecting King of Contract = G, stay in the Contract group and select the Type of Business field further down the list of fields. Activate the index for this field by clicking on the binoculars icon. You will see that Type of Business Codes A and B identify Small Disadvantaged Businesses (Code A) and Other Small Businesses (Code B). Place both codes A and B in your Type of Business search box and append these criteria to your GSA Schedules filter. Apply all criteria and switch to the Company (not Parent Company) Active View Screen to view your results.

The company list instantly displays names and details about all the small businesses that received dollars on GSA Schedule contracts during FY 2001. The first numbers we notice are the $4.793 billion in selected dollars (appearing on the blue stripe across the top of the data grid). The next number below that is 3,763. This is the total number of small firms with active Schedules in FY 2001.

In the data grid itself, the % of View $ column shows each company's share of the $4.8 billion in small business Schedule dollars spent during the year. The top small business, GTSI, accounts for 2.5% of the $4.8 billion. The next company, World Wide Technology, accounts for 2.41%. By the time we reach the fifth firm the combined market share of schedule dollars for the top five small businesses totals 10% of all selected dollars. Therefore, the correct answer to this week's quiz is False.

In fact, the GSA Schedule market for small businesses appears unstratified compared to most government markets. The offering of products and services from small businesses on Schedule is diverse, making it difficult for any one firm to "corner the market." The challenge for small businesses remains to compete effectively with large firms that have much larger sales and marketing efforts. Based on reported prime contract spending data for FY 2001, GSA Schedule contracts appear to be a vehicle that enhances the competitive stature of small firms in the federal marketplace.

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