NIH Contract Guide
NITAAC Plans Big Changes to Spur Small Business Sales

By Steve LeSueur

The CIO-SP3 Small Business contract could generate sales equal to or even exceeding its full-and-open counterpart, according to NITAAC officials.

The planned small business contract will be the first NIH GWAC that is exclusively for small businesses. Under the current CIO-SP2i contract, large and small businesses compete against each other for task orders. CIO-SP3 Small Business will enable agencies to create set-aside opportunities in four categories:

• Small Business

• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business

• 8(a) Small Disadvantaged Business

• Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone)

“We are taking an aggressive approach to protecting the interests of the NITAAC small business community,” said NITAAC Program Director Mary Armstead. “We want to provide the richest opportunity we can for small businesses.”

NITAAC officials point to several features that will make the set aside solicitation attractive to small businesses. Although the set-aside solicitation will contain the same 10 task areas as the open solicitation, small businesses will be required to demonstrate capability for a minimum of only three task areas; and HUBZone, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned, and 8(a) small businesses will be required to demonstrate capability in only two task areas. In contrast, vendors must qualify for all 10 task areas in order to be considered for an award on the open contract. The small business contract will have a $20 billion ceiling over 10 years – the same as the open contract – thus reflecting NITAAC’s confidence that it will be widely used. Finally, NITAAC will charge a reduced fee of 0.75 percent – the fee is 1 percent for the open contract – as added incentive for agencies to use CIO-SP3 Small Business.

“We are taking an aggressive approach to protecting the interests of the NITAAC small business community. We want to provide the richest opportunity we can for small businesses” Mary Armstead, NITAAC Program Director

NITAAC officials declined to predict how many small businesses they will select for the contract, saying the number will be depend on how many qualified proposals they receive. However, they said that each task area will require at least two contactors from a particular set-aside category in order to have a set-aside competition for that task area.

Thus far, about 13 percent of the total value of task orders and delivery orders has gone to small businesses under CIO-SP2i, IW2nd and ECS III. NITAAC officials believe the planned changes in CIO-SP3 will ensure that a larger share of potential dollars is awarded to small and small disadvantaged businesses when the new contracts are awarded.

“We have equal contract ceilings for both contracts because we think both contracts will be utilized equally – or perhaps the small contract will be utilized even more,” said NITAAC Deputy Program Director Robert Coen.

Encouraging Small Business Subcontracting
NITAAC also will continue emphasizing small business subcontracting goals under the CIO-SP3 open contract, officials said. The draft CIO-SP3 request for proposal states that large contractors will be required to spend a minimum of 39.9 percent of their subcontracting dollars with small businesses. This includes the following subcontracting goals:

• HUBZone Small Business: 3 percent

• Woman-Owned Small Business: 5 percent

• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business: 3 percent

• Small Disadvantaged Business: 5 percent

“The contract that will be very attractive to federal customers in helping them meet their small business goals and also attractive to the small business community because it provides them a great opportunity to grow their businesses and play in the federal IDIQ market place without having to compete with large businesses,” Coen said.