Work with Small Businesses

Federal agencies can meet their small business contracting goals while also meeting their needs for state of the art IT support through GSA’s trusted small business industry partners, including:

  • Small businesses;
  • Women-owned small businesses;
  • 8(a) small disadvantaged businesses;
  • HUBZone small businesses; and
  • Service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs).

The small businesses on our contracts have undergone a stringent, multidimensional selection process and have demonstrated performance. Some of our contract vehicles are set-asides with only small businesses, while others include small businesses as part of a wider pool of highly qualified industry partners. Learn how to target small businesses through contracting.

Contracts

The federal government can buy cost-effective, innovative solutions for information technology (IT) requirements through Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs).

GWACs provide access to IT solutions such as:

  • Software engineering;
  • Information assurance; and
  • Enterprise architecture solutions.
Learn More about GWACs
IT Schedule 70 features commercial IT products and services from over 5,000 industry partners, around 80 percent of which are small businesses. How to order from IT Schedule 70

The Software BPAs (formerly known as SmartBUY) allow agencies to purchase common commercial software and services at deep discounts.

State, local, and tribal governments can use the Cooperative Purchasing Program to buy from IT Schedule 70, the Risk Management Framework BPAs, and certain Software purchase (SmartBUY) agreements.

You can use many contracts to work with small businesses if you specifically target them in your request for quotes (RFQ).Depending on the contract vehicle, you can:

  • Use set-aside language;
  • Designate socioeconomic status as a primary evaluation factor; and
  • Designate subcontracting to small businesses as a primary evaluation factor.

See the ordering guides for any GSA contract above to learn more about how to use small businesses.

Visit the Small Business Utilization page for templates and processes to contract with small businesses.

The shortcut to this page is gsa.gov/smallbusinessit.

Last Reviewed: 2020-02-18