New analysis:

Going, going.... The final contracts of summer 2015

Responses due on or before Sept. 30 for 2,757 small business set-asides

The hottest days of summer also bring the hottest days for small business federal contracting activity.

As of Aug. 3, with fewer than 60 days remaining in the 2015 fiscal year, there were 2,757 small business set-aside solicitations and presolicitations in the pipeline with responses due in August and September, according to Set-Aside Alert’s review of the Federal Business Opportunities website (FBO.gov).

About 85% of those opportunities, or 2,346 in total, are set-asides designated for any eligible small business.

In addition, 259 are designated for service-disabled veterans, 88 for HUBZone firms, 41 for 8(a) companies and 35 for women-owned and economically-disadvantaged women-owned firms. (Editor’s note: the numbers do not add up exactly, probably because set-asides for women-owned also are available to economically-disadvantaged women-owned).

The number of small business set-asides with responses due in the next two months is expected to rise higher as the final deadline approaches, because many solicitations are published just a few days before responses are due.

In fiscal 2014, the month with the most responses due for presolicitations and solicitations for small business set-asides was September 2014, with 4,750 such opportunities with responses due that month.

Second highest was August 2014, with 3,985. Other peak months for such responses due were July, June and May.

The same pattern was true in fiscal 2013 as well, with 3,750 such opportunities in August 2013 and 4,584 in September 2013.

That pattern is likely to repeat itself in the coming weeks.

The totals are likely to rise as August progresses and as the Sept. 30th fiscal year end approaches. The totals for fiscal 2015, year to date, already are higher than for the comparable period of time in the last two fiscal years.

For the period of Oct. 1, 2014 to Aug. 3, 2015, there were 24,188 small business set-aside presolicitations and solicitations on FBO.gov with responses due during that period.

For the same period in fiscal 2014, there were 22,978 such opportunities. For the same period in fiscal 2013, there were 21,800 such opportunities.

Those figures suggest that small business set-asides are rolling out slightly more rapidly this year and the year’s total may exceed those of the previous two years.

In a related study, Set-Aside Alert also examined small business set-aside activity on FBO.gov, which we defined as the number of presolicitations, solicitations, sources sought notices and small business awards in a particular time period. (Editor’s note: See Aug. 22, 2014 edition of Set-Aside Alert.)

Using that measure, the month of August 2014 was the busiest month for small business set-asides for the fourth year in a row, according to Set-Aside Alert’s review of data from FBO.gov.

There were 9,909 small business presolicitations, solicitations, sources sought notices and award notices on FBO.gov in August 2014, the highest total for any month of the 2014 fiscal year.

September 2014 came in second, with 9,875 such notices, and July 2014 was third, with 8,193.

The pattern of small business activity peaking in August, with September and July vying for second place, had been in effect for three years in a row, from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2013, according to previous research by Set-Aside Alert.

Fiscal 2014 appears to have followed the same pattern. Those results suggest that while Deltek and other research firms have said federal contracting generally peaks in September each year, for small businesses the most active month may be August.

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