Kim Reidy, the director of the Office of Small Business Programs for NAVWAR, said the command is doing more to attract non-traditional small firms.
SAN DIEGO – It’s been a tough last 12 months for small business government contractors, to say the least.
There is increased scrutiny on not just the 8(a) program, but all small business set-aside contracts. The Small Business Administration yesterday began termination proceedings for 628 firms in the 8(a) program. The SBA now has begun kicking out 782 firms, or about 20% of all companies, from the 8(a) program.
At the same time, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program has been on pause since October.
And then there was the longest-ever government shutdown that delayed work and contract awards.
But it’s all not bad news for small firms as there is now some light at the end of the SBIR tunnel. The Senate on Tuesday finally passed the Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act, bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the 40-year-old programs.
Kim Reidy, the director of the Office of Small Business Programs for the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, said despite the tough year, there are plenty of contracting opportunities for small firms across the Navy.
“We spend time trying to do outreach to those small businesses that maybe haven’t done business with us before. The reason I say it’s an exciting time is also now what NAVWAR is doing is we are really trying to pivot more toward some non-traditional contracting with other transaction authorities (OTAs) and commercial solutions openings (CSOs),” Reidy said in an interview with Federal News Network at the West conference sponsored by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute. “Our contracts team has a CSO website to advertise areas of interest, and so I’ve been working with some of the people on those teams to make sure that we’re figuring out how to market ourselves to non-traditionals and attract some companies that would have never thought to do business with NAVWAR as well. So we’re trying to support both our traditional base as well as some non-traditionals.”
Reidy said NAVWAR also created an industry engagement form to reduce the burden for small companies who want to work with the command.
One big change that is coming for NAVWAR is the end of its long-range acquisition estimate. Reidy said the organization put one out in December and that likely is the last one. She added the Navy may be putting some information out about potential acquisition plans at a higher level in the coming months.
SBIR office ready to go
The NAVWAR SBIR/STTR program office has been using its time since the program’s authorization expired on Oct. 1 to relook at how it will communicate about future topics.
Shadi Azoum, the program manager of the SBIR/STTR programs at NAVWAR, said his goal is to attract a larger community of small businesses.
“How do we better reach the larger defense industrial base that does include non-traditionals? Do we need to take a look at some of our contracting strategies? We’ve always been so accustomed to Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)-based contracts, could we expand that realm to other types of contracts that would appeal to them so things are a little bit faster and easier to go through?” Azoum said. “It’s almost like a fact finding or philosophy kind of going back and forth in our mind, of like, what can we do that’s faster and easier? Another thing is that it allows us to, with our new Chief of Naval Operations, is to understand what are our leadership priorities. What are those Golden Fleet priorities that have been advertised? And how can we make those and meet those faster and easier?”
Azoum said once Congress passes and President Donald Trump signs the bill to reauthorize the SBIR/STTR programs, NAVWAR will be ready to go with Phase 1 and Phase 2 efforts.
“We have a queue of topics ready to go once it gets reauthorized, so the minute that it does, our solicitation, which is traditionally now every single month will come out,” he said. “We also have, in the past, done open topics, and I think that’s also attracting some non-traditionals, and we intend on doing that as a continuing trend. One thing I did want to also add on that kind of nature in the SBIR realm was we’re also exploring mechanisms where we are able to accept matching funds from non-government sources as a part of our SBIR contracts. So I think that’s something that would help grow some of those non-traditionals.”
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