MACs good for some small biz

      The government’s trend of increasingly utilizing multiple-award contracts (MACs) is benefiting some small businesses a great deal, especially in the socioeconomic categories, according to a new report from the Small Business Administration.

      For example, Women-Owned Small Businesses won 8.2% of awards on MACs from fiscal 2012-2017. By comparison, women-owned small firms won only 3.5% on non-MAC contracts.

      But the MAC rewards are not broadly distributed. Only about one out of eight small federal contractors are eligible for MAC small business awards.

      Those are some of the findings of a wide-ranging new report the SBA recently delivered to Congress under orders from the fiscal 2018 defense bill. The report was released online by the HUBZone Contractors National Council.

MAC small business share

      MACs are growing, but the small business share, while substantial, has been flat since about fiscal 2014.

      Overall, MACs grew from $85 billion in fiscal 2012 to $109 billion in fiscal 2017. MAC procurement expanded from 21% of total procurement to 25% during the period.

      The small business share of MAC obligations was 33% in fiscal 2012, rising to 36% in fiscal 2013 and 38% in fiscal 2014. It has been essentially flat since then, at 37% in fiscal 2017.

      Even so, the small vendors are winning a much larger share of MAC spending, in comparison to their share of non-MAC spending.

      The percentage of non-MAC obligations going to small businesses averaged 20.3% from fiscal 2012-2017. That suggests that without MACS, the government might not be reaching the 23% goal.

      The average obligation to a small firm on a MAC was $2.8 million in fiscal 2017, in comparison to $0.7 million to a small vendor without a MAC.

Socioeconomic categories

      Small businesses in the socioeconomic categories are winning higher percentages of awards on MACs than without MACs:

• Women-Owned got 8.2% on MACs, 3.5% without MACs;
• Small Disadvantaged won 12.5% on MACs, and 8.1% on non-MACs;
• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned won 7.2% on MACs; 2.6% non-MACs;
• and HUBZone firms won 2.6% on MACs, 1.5% on non-MACs.

# of small firms

      The number of small contractors has been shrinking. In fiscal 2017 there were 13,200 small firms on MACs and 87,636 small firms without MACs.

More information:
HUBZone Council posting of SBA report: https://bit.ly/2XfqpeT

(URLs in Set-Aside Alert have been shortened by the bit.ly URL shortener)

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