Small Business Program and Source Selection Plans - Assignment Example

? Small Business Program and Source Selection Plans The purpose of the federal small business program The small business programs were developed for the socially and economically disadvantaged companies and small businesses. The major purpose of the program was to ensure there is an equitable opportunity in the participation of a federal procurement, meaning that it would help small businesses acquire government contracts. According to the Section 15 in the Small Business Act of 1953, there should be fair proportion of the total contracts and purchases for services for the government, which should be positioned with the small businesses concerns (Hillstrom, & Hillstrom, 2002). As a government Contracting Officer, the programs are qualified for small business through a particular criteria and size standard. This program is not dominant on its operational fields although there are various influences on the national business activities also some business interest primarily engaged in small business (Byrd and Megginson, 2013). This perspective determines the dominance of the projects in consideration to the market volumes and the number of employees and achieved since the business contractors have the ownership of control material and the nature of the business activities. The Small Business Program today has grown significantly, due to the history since the foundation of the program. For example, in the year 1958, The Investment Company Act developed Small Business Investment Company program that regulated and assisted in providing funds for privately own businesses and for the operated venture capital investment firms. Additionally, the program also specialized in providing long-term debts and equity investment to small businesses. Thereafter, the Small business Act was used to develop the Equal Opportunity Loan Program that lessened credit and collateral requirement for applicants for the poor people in order to encourage new innovative small businesses that had been unable to attract financial support. Presently, the programs have extended its support to small businesses in management assistance, government contract procurement backing, and a specialized reach to the women and other minority groups (Hillstrom, & Hillstrom, 2002). Evaluate the small business set-aside program concerning the eligibility to participate Primarily, the program provides support to small businesses so the requirements for eligibility are mostly based on the aspects of the business, most importantly; they are based on what the business does to acquire their income, where the business operates, and lastly the character of its ownership. However, there are some universal requirements that the program needs to be eligible for assistance. First, the business should be a small in America as prescribed by the SBA and should be operating for profits, as a result, it should have reasonable invested equity. Secondly, the business should have the capability of demonstrating that they need the support, and present a reasonable business purpose. Thirdly, the business should not have any existing debt to the American government; also use other alternatives such as personal assets before seeking assistance from the program (Byrd and Megginson, 2013). The small businesses programs focus on eligibility of businesses to participate, and the encouragement of small domestic business to join in national research that has commercialization potential. Since the program is competitive, the program ensures that individuals in small businesses have the ability to participate in different possible activities, and this provides enticement of profits from commercialization. These Small business programs are diverse and target different succeeding innovative businesses, for example in technology sector. However, the risk and expense of conducting the product results are usually beyond the means of various small businesses (Swift & Booker, 2003). Through reservation of several factors of federal funds and government contracts in small businesses, they are able to develop the ability to compete on similar grounds with large businesses. The Small Business programs funds critical and developmental stages and encourages commercialization of technology and other innovative ideas thus stimulates the country’s economy. Since the implementation of the program, the Small Business programs have helped several disadvantaged businesses in compete for the federal contracts and financial support (Swift and Booker, 2003). Assess the dollar threshold reserved for small business contracts in the scenario In this case, when the government value exceeds $100,000, there are various necessities that tend to be technical for both products and services. At such cases, the government issues a Request for Proposals. Generally, the government requests a product and services it requires through solicit proposals from various contractors on their intentions to develop their request. They also have a price proposal developed in response to the Request for Proposal, which is utilized in the negotiations (Frey, 2012). When the government fails to check on the possibility of product and service acquisition in small businesses, it usually issues a Request for Quotation (RFQ). The response of RFQ has prospective contractors usually not considered by the government, to a binding contract. The order has a suitable offer by the government for suppliers who purchase various supplies under specific terms and conditions. The contract is usually developed when the small business suppliers accepts their offers (Swift & Booker, 2003). It is worth noting that all the acquisition of services and supplies for the Arizona-Mexico was approximated to a value exceeding $100,000. The simplified acquisition of the threshold defines the strategic reservations of the installation concerns. This is usually set aside for small businesses unless the contracting officer determines reasonable expectations. The offers obtained are responsible for the development of small business concerns and they are competitive based on the market prices, delivery, and the quality. When the contracting officers fail to proceed with minimal business set aside, and the purchase of unrestricted basis, a contract file, is published entailing of the reasons for unrestricted purchases. When the contracting officer receives a single offer that is acceptable by the small businesses concerns, the contracting officers is expected to develop an award for the firm. When the contracting officers receive minimal acceptable offers from responsible small businesses, the aspect is usually set aside and eventually withdrawn from its requirements. However, the security installation company failed to exclude the contract awards with values less than $100,000 (Frey, 2012). Analyze the contract formats for government contracts to include universal and commercial formats. Determine which format to use for the small business contract described in the scenario There are distinct meanings of small businesses, according to all profit industries. The size criteria represent diverse businesses, for example, its affiliates and subsidiaries; remain classified in relation to the small businesses. To discover what makes up a small business, the definition varies with the differences of the industry. The size standards are supposed to determine the eligibility of the company financial aid and other programs that help small businesses (Byrd & Megginson, 2013). According to the Small Business Act, unless there is special authorization of a statute, no federal agency should prescribe a size standard that categorizes the small business. To fit on the standards, the business is expected to satisfy the SBA aspects of a business, and the size standards set for a small business. The SBA usually defines the business concern, organized for profit, and it operates within the United States (Hillstrom, & Hillstrom, 2002). However, there are different formats contracts that the government uses to offer contracts to the companies or businesses that have acquired the acquisitions. They are either universal or commercial formats. For example, there is the Uniform Contract Format, which is a standardized format for structuring government contracts and solicitations. This contract format is used to acquire non-commercial or universal goods and services that exceed $100,000. UCF identifies the parts and sections of a contract also defining the information that goes with each (Compton, 2010). On the other hand, there is the Non-Uniform Contract Format, is used in acquiring commercial goods and services. In this scenario, the government would use the UCF format of a contract during the purchase of the Installation security fencing. This is because it is a non-commercial and the contract is worth $100,000, stipulated to be the requirement in issuing the UCF contract. In addition, the type of contract format is also determined by the size and the standard of a business where a small business with no capacity of handling over $100,000 contract is eliminated and given to the capable companies (Compton, 2010). Determine the purpose of the source-selection evaluation plan Source selection process is identified as one of the major missions of business development governed through statutes and regulations. This factor brings together many disciplines and individuals where their main aim in the evaluation plan is to gather a common understanding of the procedure and issues that develop in the contracting process (Scarborough, 2009). According to the Arizona-Mexico border security installation, the program is encouraged to walk through the process in the manner, which the step occurs. Source selection process is utilized in competitive and negotiated contracting that determines the proposal offering the preferable values to the government (Byrd and Megginson, 2013). The major importance of source selection plan is to ensure that the program is gain the ability to develop effective decisions in selecting the small businesses that would enjoy their services. Most federal contracts use the source selection process in selecting contracting officers to manage the acquisitions unless in cases where a different company is selected for the acquisition. The source selection program is used in establishing evaluation groups that cater for various acquisitions and commonly entails of appropriate contractors and other experts that ensure that there is a comprehensive evaluation of the offer (McDavid, 2013). The source selection plan has the initiative of developing a competitive security program, based on the comparative assessment of proposals against all source selection criteria of solicitation. The source selection decision is expected to be documented, analyses of the rationale in businesses judgments and tradeoffs initiated by source selection, thus representing an independent judgment from the program (Frey, 2012). Create ranking of criteria for evaluation plans for this scenario Evaluation method is how the evaluation panel will score the contracts against your evaluation criteria and agree on an outcome. Defining the evaluation methods in the acquisition plan is one important aspect when choosing on which company to give the contract, this enhance the quality of your decisions. Most importantly, some issues should be considered in the evaluation plans. First, one should consider whether there are any needs that should be met so that the rest of the contract is considered. The other issue is how your wants are weighted thus reflecting on the importance of the contract or the proposal. The final issue is the requirements that the contract is evaluated on the strengths of a written response; in this case, one should not base their decision on the previous knowledge of a company or hearsay (Rumbaugh, 2010). When developing the criteria aim in making sure that the best supplier for the goods and services for the project, one should consider the following ranking criterion. First, in this case, one should check whether the evaluation method is the best way in managing the selection process, second, is whether the criteria developed will be a position to evaluate the main information highlighted in the specifications. In addition, one should also consider whether practical presentations will be needed as part of the evaluation also the references to timeframes and the consequences over run contingencies. The final criterion is to check whether the costs and the approximated project budget factors are featured in the conditions (Rumbaugh, 2010). References Byrd, M. J., & Megginson, L. C. (2013). Small business management: An entrepreneur's guidebook. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Compton, P. B. (2010). Federal acquisition: Key issues and guidance. Vienna, VA: Management Concepts. Frey, R. S. (2012). Successful Proposal Strategies for Small Businesses: Using Knowledge Management to Win Government, Private-Sector, and International Contracts. Norwood: Artech House. Hillstrom, K., & Hillstrom, L. C. (2002). Encyclopedia of small business. Detroit, MI: Gale Group. Rumbaugh, M. G. (2010). Understanding government contract source selection. Vienna, VA: Management Concepts. Swift, K. G., & Booker, J. D. (2003). Process selection: From design to manufacture. Oxford [England: Butterworth-Heinemann. Read More