AN HONOR AND A CHALLENGE
DAWN HALFAKER President and CEO Halfaker and Associates Arlington, VA
I
started Halfaker and Associates over nine years ago as an individual providing consulting under a purchase order-based contract. As an Army veteran, I had a strong military background and expertise with the Army, but it was challeng- ing to launch from a one-person business to a company competing for prime
contracts.
When it comes to small business set-asides, there are definitely both benefits and down- sides. Small business set-asides are great in that they try to ensure that small businesses are awarded a fair proportion of government contracts. However, it can be a double- edged sword if there is a $100 million opportunity set aside for small business and the small business cannot perform at that scale. Small business set-asides can also force small businesses to graduate [to the mid-tier] too early, before they’ve had time to build the necessary past performance, processes and internal infrastructure to compete with big companies. Tere’s no gradual off-ramp for these types of businesses, and mid-sized companies would benefit greatly from that type of program.
Responding to RFPs can be challenging for small businesses. It’s important to not waste time and energy chasing and capturing something that you don’t have customer knowledge [of] or is outside of your capabilities. We focus on opportunities that [we] have a high probability to win, meaning we know the customer, have applicable past performance and have performed in-depth analysis and research on. It’s also impor- tant to know how to leverage the strengths of your employees. Leveraging your own technical experts to provide input, draft content or review documents can help refine your proposal and allow for feedback that you may not have received if you kept your response with your proposal team.
Small business set-asides can also force small businesses to graduate [to the mid-tier] too early, before they’ve had time to build the necessary past performance, processes and internal infrastructure to compete with big companies.
120 Army AL&T Magazine January-March 2016
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