The Power of Teaming

Contract teaming is a good opportunity for small businesses looking to get their foot in the government contracting door. Larger, more established teaming partners provide added capabilities and resources to the small business, increasing their chance to participate in new market and product opportunities. Perhaps most importantly, teaming with a large corporation exposes each department in the smaller business to new production, servicing and administrative systems and methods. In effect, they are getting paid to learn new ideas and techniques which will help their company in the future.

Benefits to Large Corporations

The benefits to smaller companies seem obvious. But why would a large corporation actively seek small businesses to team on contracts? One of the biggest motivating factors is that teaming allows large corporations to participate on small business "set aside" contracts. Set aside contracts are those contracts targeted only for small businesses. To ensure that small businesses get their fair share of government contracts, the SBA negotiates annual procurement preference goals with each Federal agency. Each year, the federal government sets as its statutory goal 23% of the total prime contracts for small businesses. Other goals set are 5% of prime and subcontracts for small disadvantaged businesses; 5% of prime and subcontracts for women-owned small businesses and 2.5% for HUBZone small businesses. The SBA is responsible for ensuring that these statutory goals are met in the aggregate each year. Visit the SBA web site at www.sba.gov/GC/goals/ for further information. If you consider that the U.S. government puts out to bid contracts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars each year, the motivation to work with small businesses is great. Simply put, the large business is willing to lend its expertise to assist the small business in meeting the contract requirements because it is their best chance of participating in the set aside contract pool.

Think 'Outside the Box'

When looking at government contracting, there are obvious contracts available within a small company’s product or service category. The art of teaming, however, lies in locating more unique situations where a small company’s product line is added to a larger product offering. For instance, if yours is a security firm, the obvious contract opportunity might be to provide physical grounds security to a data center. A less obvious opportunity would be to stretch your capabilities by teaming with an IT firm that specializes in network security in order to provide the data center with both physical and operational security services. While your smaller business is still providing its basic security services, it has joined with a larger company to provide those services in a much larger contract opportunity.

Finding Teaming Partners

While there is no definitive "one-stop" source to find teaming partners, there are some resources to help a small business. The SBA has established a directory called SUBNet where prime contractors post subcontracting opportunities. To view this directory go to www.sba.gov/sbanet. In the private sector, many large businesses have set up Small Business Liaison departments that function as small business teaming specialists. Probably the best way to identify suitable partners is to search the web site of a few larger companies you would like to work with and search for any small business liaison program.

If a small business is looking to grow in the governmental contracting arena, teaming can play a significant role in expanding not only its business, but also its knowledge base.