{"id":140,"date":"2010-04-19T13:40:31","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T17:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/?p=140"},"modified":"2024-01-11T18:21:01","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T23:21:01","slug":"small-business-set-asides-a-good-thing-and-the-right-thing-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/2010\/04\/19\/small-business-set-asides-a-good-thing-and-the-right-thing-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Business Set-Asides \u2013 a Good Thing and the Right Thing to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small businesses drive the U.S. economy \u2013 we hear this almost every day on the news. According to a recent Washington Post article<\/a>, \u201cFirms with fewer than 500 employees employ just over half of the country’s workers and create nearly two-thirds of the country’s new jobs.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty clear: small businesses\u2014veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned, HUBZone, disadvantaged, women-owned and minority-owned businesses\u2014are key drivers of innovation and job creation. They will be critical to pulling our nation out of the current economic crisis.<\/p>\n

So what can we, government agencies, do to support the continuing recovery of the American economy?<\/p>\n

One tool we have on hand is the small business set-aside. More than ever before, government agencies need to take a hard look at their procurement procedures and their progress towards meeting their small business goals. As part of our standard procurement process for all contracts, we consistently ask ourselves \u201ccould a small business fulfill these requirements?\u201d I am proud to say that GSA met its small business goals last year.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re an agency looking for a way to energize your small business procurement, GSA offers you a number of governmentwide IT acquisition contracts tailored to your varying needs, including VETS<\/a>, 8(a) STARS<\/a>, and Alliant Small Business<\/a>. They offer time- and cost-savings, flexibility, worldwide geographic coverage, highly qualified industry partners and, of course, the procurement preference credit you need. We even have a Small Business GWAC Center<\/a>\u00a0that will help you walk through the process of choosing the right solution.<\/p>\n

In addition, the majority of vendors in our IT Schedule 70<\/a>\u00a0program are small businesses, which provides ample opportunity for agencies to fulfill their IT needs and meet their small business goals.<\/p>\n

I know there also are a lot of small businesses out there who have questions about how to provide their innovative technology solutions through our GWACs and schedules. I invite you to come talk to us.<\/p>\n

As we head further into our fiscal year, we have a chance to give our economy a boost. Choosing to contract with small businesses is a good thing and it\u2019s the right thing to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know there also are a lot of small businesses out there who have questions about how to provide their innovative technology solutions through our GWACs and schedules. I invite you to come talk to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19176],"tags":[86,84,87,40,22976,9,79,77,78,85,82],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-services","tag-8a-stars","tag-alliant","tag-alliant-small-business","tag-government-acquisition","tag-governmentwide","tag-it-schedule-70","tag-service-disabled-veteran-owned","tag-small-business","tag-veteran-owned","tag-vets","tag-women-owned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/256"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3594,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/3594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}