Sources Sought and RFI Benchmarking with Small Business

Sources Sought and RFI Benchmarking with Small Business Industry Assistance Office April 29, 2016

Goal and Objective Goal: To streamline the processes so Small Business finds it both less resource prohibitive and a greater value to their organization to participate in the process Objective: To conduct a benchmarking discussion with the JSC Small Business Council on improving the Sources Sought and RFI process to make it more efficient and increase participation by Small Businesses. The intent is to get input from the council on best practices and lessons learned that can be used to improve the process.

Purpose – Sources Sought and RFI Sources Sought • To determine what vendors are interested in bidding on a procurement. RFI • To determine what vendors are interested in bidding on a procurement. • To provide enough information about them to research them through the Dynamic Small Business Search to determine if they are viable candidates and their Small Business status. • To request information specific to strategic planning questions the board has in the construction of the RFP. (ie. Splitting the contract, multi -award etc. )

Best Practices Follow an established format. Be specific about the information needed. Limit the information request. Do not request pricing information. Be considerate. Remember that the ultimate goal of this information gathering exercise is to establish a relationship with a respected business partner. Be cost conscious. Remember also that there is a cost to the supplier to prepare responses. Give the supplier appropriate time to respond.

Lessons Learned • A small business has a small staff doing proposals, looking for opportunities on Fed Biz Ops, and responding to these requests. If you ask for too much information, you force me to choose which I will spend my time on. Since I often have no idea if the final procurement will be a NAISC code or Small Business designation I can bid on … I am not going to spend the time to respond to your request. • I will never put my company in a “bad light” that makes us look unprofessional. If you ask for too much information or information that I can only do half the work …. Its better not to respond and just wait to see what comes out in the draft RFP. • I often realize that if I respond, there is a chance it will result in it being a set-aside I can propose on. If the what is being asked for is easy and won’t take long, I will take the time to respond.

Inputs from JSC - SBC • The primary concern from the discussion was the lack of feedback from the boards to the companies that submitted either Sources Sought or RFI’s. There were two concerns: These included wanted feedback on how they could improve their submissions and wanted some feedback on how the board selected the type of procurement ie. SDVO, Full and Open, Small Business, etc. • There was complete agreement that having a standard the forms and simplifying requested information would make it easier and less costly for Small Businesses. This new process would also increase the likelihood small businesses would respond to these requests.