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August 11, 2004
Does My Company Really Need a GSA Schedule?
Something new today -- a guest blogger! I've asked my colleague, Patrick Suarez, to write up a short introduction on GSA Schedules. Pat is President of Suarez Associates, which specializes in GSA schedule proposal preparation, training and consulting. Here's what he has to say:
A great deal of confusion exists over the need for a GSA schedule, also called a GSA contract.
For those unfamiliar, a GSA schedule (or contract) is a negotiated, multi-year, publicly available agreement between the federal government and your company. The contract contains the start and end dates of the contract,a list of your goods and services, the maximum rate that a government agency can expect to pay for your goods and services, some information about how to contact your company and some legal jargon. Once you post your GSA schedule information to the GSA's general store, www.gsaadvantage.gov, government agencies may order your goods and services directly from you via the GSA Advantage website and skip the bureaucracy of protracted negotiations.
Countless small businesses, including some with experience as subcontractors to prime contractors on federally funded projects, ponder the need for acquiring their own schedules. Do we need a GSA schedule? Why do we need one? Can we get federal work without one?
A company can, indeed, find paying work without a GSA schedule. But, having a schedule gives your company a very major leg up on those without schedules. Your advantage is two-fold: Because the GSA posts its requests for proposal (documents that describe the government's need and the conditions under which it does business) publicly and many companies respond to them and then sign contracts based on them, the legal requirement for competition is satisfied. Also, because the GSA negotiates "best customer" prices with those companies that earn GSA schedules, the requirement for a "fair and reasonable" price is satisfied.
Companies without GSA schedules do not have the GSA's seal of approval (competition and best price satisfied), so the government and its prime contractors have an easier time in awarding to those companies with GSA schedules, bypassing those companies without schedules.
For more information or to contact Pat about helping you with your GSA Schedule needs, please visit his website at www.gsaproposal.com. Let him know that you heard about his services from Deborah's Proposal Writing Blog.
Posted by Deborah at August 11, 2004 09:45 AM
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