The Department of Veterans Affairs flips government contracting on its head by offering small businesses $5 billion in contracts.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is expected to award a $5 billion services contract to small-business prime contractors. In a complete reversal from the norm, the prime contractors selected will be allowed to have a maximum of 150 employees. This will force large companies like Dell and IBM to compete for the right to be subcontractors on the award.
The five-year contract will be awarded to three small businesses, with at least one being owned by a disabled veteran. The umbrella contract will cover information technology services, hardware and software as needed during the term by the DVA. Unlike other budgets, the DVA technology budget isn’t at risk of being cut.
It is extremely unusual for small businesses to be prime contractors on large contracts, especially one measured in billions of dollars. The decision was made as a response to the federal government failing once again to achieve its small-business procurement goals.
Learn more about Mike Periu
Mike works with small businesses to teach them about finance and management. He started Proximo, LLC, a company that offers small business education and training services focused on finance and technology.
Periu also writes for OpenForum, Yahoo! Finanzas the Huffington Post contributor.
Mike went to Georgetown University where he studied Finance and International Business. He also serves on the Board of the Council for Economic Education and was a Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation.
