GSA launches acquisition planning tool for small businesses

• By Amanda Ziadeh
• Mar 17, 2016

The General Services Administration is making it easier for small businesses to find federal government contracting opportunities with the recent launch of a Small Business Forecast of Contracting Opportunities Tool.

The dashboard is currently in its beta version and GSA plans for it to be a “worldwide database of upcoming potential federal contracting opportunities.” Users can filter contracting opportunities by agency, award status, location, the North America Industry Classification System code and contract value, according to a post by  Jerome Fletcher, the associate administrator at GSA’s Office of Small Business Utilization.

Fletcher’s office worked with 18F to build the dashboard’s open source prototype, making the code available on GitHub. The data used on the site comes from participating agencies' acquisition staff and program managers themselves, along with publically available information.

The dashboard provides contracting opportunities from six of the 24 major procurement agencies and will be adding more over time. Future versions will also allow vendors to register and be notified when new requirements are published or when changes are made to an existing requirement, GSA Administrator Denise Turner Roth said in a video accompanying the blog post.

The new forecast tool differs from FedBizOpps in that it focuses on small businesses, giving them access to prime and sub-contracting opportunities early in the acquisition process. And whereas FedBizOpps contains only opportunities over $25,000, the forecast tool has projected opportunities at any dollar amount, Fletcher said.

With the tool’s user-friendly interface, accessible web-based data and greater transparency, GSA hopes to make it easier for small companies do business with federal agencies, Roth said.