“… Although Biden will become the president today, the full impact of his term will not go into effect for about 2 years. Government contractors have plenty of time to prepare for this transition but will want to start now so they are ahead of the curve.”
“While some experts say government contracting funding won’t change much during the Biden-Harris Administration, there will still be inevitable changes in the procurement habits of government agencies. Let’s dig deeper into what trends we could see over the next 4 years…”
Small Business Prioritization
“The federal government values small business participation in government contracting. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has several resources and set-aside programs to help small business contractors find opportunities to offer their solutions to the government.”
“Recently, GSA has been focusing on creating even more opportunities for small businesses, like the creation of Polaris, a small business IT Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) which has an emphasis on economically disadvantaged and Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSB). With the Biden-Harris Administration, it looks like this trend will continue for small and minority-owned businesses.”
“Throughout Biden’s campaign, he mentioned a $400 billion plan to “support small businesses and tackle inequities in the federal contracting system.” This plan would expand the SBA’s small business development program and require prime contractors to increase subcontracting opportunities for small-disadvantaged businesses.”
IT and Cybersecurity Spending
“The recent SolarWinds cyberattack showed that our federal government and its counterparts need to step up their cybersecurity protocol to prevent future breaches. The Biden-Harris Administration wants Congress to approve a spending plan that would allocate more than $10 billion for IT and cybersecurity initiatives.”
“One part of the plan is to give a direct award to GSA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) to improve cybersecurity shared services. The Biden-Harris Administration also wants to allocate an additional $690 million for CISA to strengthen cybersecurity across federal civilian networks and pilot a new shared security and cloud computing services.”
“With this sizeable investment in IT and cybersecurity, government agencies will certainly be releasing solicitations and looking to procure the best solutions to fulfill these initiatives. That being said, you’ll want to make sure your company is up to date on all the cybersecurity requirements for government contractors so you are ready to respond to these contracting opportunities and you are remaining compliant with your GSA Schedule…” Read the full article here.
Source: Trends Government Contractors Should Watch During the Biden-Harris Administration – By Stephanie Hagan, January 20, 2021. Winvale.
