Ownership/Diversity Credentials Registered Small Business
Women-Owned Business Enterprise Women-Owned Small Business
Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business Veteran-Owned Small Business
Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business Minority-Owned Business SBA-Certified 8(a) Firm SBA-Certified HUB Zone Firm
SBA-Certified Small Disadvantaged Business LGBT Business Enterprise
place is a way for the vendor to self-certify and a way for the government to be able to see and verify that certification.
Finally, we need a way to link to the gov- ernment payment system. Tat would be the General Fund Enterprise Busi- ness System (GFEBS). For the user, the payment system would be transparent, much in the way it is now for conven- tional Amazon customers. In this case, though, the government would pay the bill. Again, this would just be a matter of developing software to tie the user to the CAC and the system.
SMALL-BUSINESS FILTERS This screenshot shows the small disadvantaged business categories a shopper can choose to buy from on the Amazon Business portal. By checking one or all of the boxes, users see vendors with those credentials. If an organi- zation needs to buy its office supplies from a particular category—to meet the required percentage of purchases from small businesses, for example—a buyer from the organization can filter options by checking the appropriate boxes. (Image courtesy of
Amazon.com Inc.)
Current payment methods, such as gov- ernment purchase cards, purchase orders and invoices, as well as the ability to load your tax exemption form, are available on Amazon Business today. Direct inter- face with the Army GFEBS for payment could easily be implemented into the cur- rent payment system.
EXTRA BENEFITS One of the major side benefits of such an e-commerce platform would be the trans- parency to both the government and to the user. Tat’s because a platform like the Amazon Business portal provides an analytics dashboard that makes it easy to track and analyze an organization’s
spending. Army leadership could gain greater insight into what, when, how and from whom the Army is buying. Users could create and download custom reports to meet any government require- ment. If a user wanted to know how much an organization spent on toner, all she would have to do is simply click a box.
Amazon’s search algorithm allows users to filter small business categories, which would help an organization to achieve its small business goals (e.g., making a certain percentage of purchases from woman- or minority-owned businesses). Amazon’s data analytics would enable the Army to measure its socioeconomic goals for small and disadvantaged businesses. Small businesses certified through the U.S. Small Business Admin- istration could be loaded directly into the Amazon database for easy identifica- tion. Currently on the Amazon portal, users need to check blocks to activate the vendor credentials they want to search by. Part of the contract with an e-com- merce portal would adjust search results or control what gets into the “buy box,” so that the top option supports FAR requirements.
E-commerce would lessen the burden on contracting commands, provide greater transparency—and could be easily implemented within the next six months.
Te user could request spend-analysis reports, which would provide transpar- ency and accountability, vital for efficient operations. With such information, users could identify items purchased in large quantities from across units, which in turn could lead to more efficient bulk purchases.
In addition, exclusive price and quantity discounts exist on more than 5 million products for those with an Amazon Busi- ness account. Price breaks on multi-unit product purchases mean an additional cost
reduction when buying in bulk.
Finally, business purchasers can negotiate prices with vendors through the portal.
HTTPS: / /
ASC.ARMY.MIL 43
ACQUISITION
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