Electronic Commerce: Small Business Participation in Selected On-Line Procurement Programs

摘要

For the three federal on-line procurement programs we reviewed, the dollar share of awards to small businesses exceeded the overall small business share of total federal contract dollars awarded in fiscal years 2000 and 1999. For fiscal year 2000, the small business share was 61 percent for the Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support E-CAT, 51 percent for GSA Advantage, and 39 percent for GSA's Information Technology Solutions Shop, compared to the overall 22 percent governmentwide small business share. While these figures indicate that small businesses successfully participated in these three programs, officials from organizations representing or working with small businesses, as well as related literature, still report that such businesses face obstacles in conducting electronic procurements with the government. Some of these reported obstacles pertain to the general capability of small businesses to conduct business transactions electronically (for example, having limited technical expertise), while others relate to difficulties with participating in the federal government electronic procurement environment, such as having knowledge of the government's multiple procurement Web sites. The federal government has taken, or is in the process of taking, actions to help address some of these obstacles, such as implementing a single point of entry on the Internet for vendors to access information on available government business opportunities greater than $25,000.