Small biz utilization drops in gov-wide Best-In-Class awards

      The share of small businesses on the government's "Best-in-Class" (BIC) procurements has fallen to 24.7% to date in fiscal 2020, its lowest level in five years, according to a dashboard of category management efforts by the General Services Administration.

      The small business utilization percentage of BIC purchases has dropped in three of the past five years:

• 31.1% in fiscal 2016;
• 29.7% in fiscal 2017;
• 31.0% in fiscal 2018;
• 30.4% in fiscal 2019;
• 24.7% in fiscal 2020 to date.

      The GSA began tracking so-called Best-in-Class procurements in fiscal 2016 as part of an ongoing Category Management initiative. The initiative involves organizing certain types of goods or services, such as furniture or computer hardware, into a category and setting up "Best-In-Class" acquisition vehicles for bulk purchases in that category.

      The GSA recently reported the small business share of BIC procurements on its online Public Category Management Dashboard.

      The dashboard provided no explanation for the reduction in the small business percentage in recent years. GSA officials were not immediately available.

      However, other data from the dashboard suggests an overall shrinkage in BIC procurements for fiscal 2020.

      The value of BIC awards, the value of BIC as a percentage of addressable spending, and, most notably, the value of addressables overall, all have fallen this year, after several years of gains:

• $6.5 billion BIC was 7.7% of $84 billion in addressables in fiscal 2016;
• $26.2 billion BIC was 24.2% of $108 billion in addressables in fiscal 2017;
• $31.4 billion BIC was 26% of $121 billion in addressables in fiscal 2018;
• $27.6 billion BIC was 27.5% of $137 billion in addressables in fiscal 2019; and
• $16.4 billion BIC was 25.6% of only $64 billion in addressables in fiscal 2020, to date.

      The agencies with the highest percentage of BIC as a percentage of addressables were NSF, 69%; EPA, 67%; Education, 65%; GSA, 65%; and SBA, 64%.

      The agencies with the highest values of Spend Under Management were DOE, $15 million; DOD, $11 million; VA, $8 million; DLA, $7 million; and USAF, $5 million.

More Information:
Dashboard: https://bit.ly/38bS0os

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