Contracting Opportunities

April 13, 2006

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Now let's get a better picture of where the government spends its money.

Fiscal Year 2003 (10/1/02-9/30/03) Total Federal Actions and Contract Dollars
Agency	Actions	Dollars
DoD	5,801,573	$214,102,980,750
Civilian	5,721,087	$91,357,016,177
Total	11,522,660	$305,459,996,927

As you can see, there are two basic areas in which the government spends its contract dollars: the Department of Defense (DoD) and civilian agencies, such as the Department of Veteran Affairs and Department of Justice. And, as you can also see, the government contracted for almost $306 billion in products and services in fiscal 2003 alone. Based on the numbers, it looks like DoD is the biggest opportunity, but remember that many of the dollars went toward major systems and thus to larger companies.

Next let's look at what small businesses have done for the same period.

Fiscal Year 2003 (10/1/02-9/30/03) Small Business Government Contracting
Noncompetitive	Restricted Competition	Open Competition
$4,600,000,000	$5,400,000,000	$17,900,000,000

*These figures do not add up to the total figure of $65.5 billion because they do not reflect buys for under $25,000, which amounted to $37,600,000,000 and are automatically reserved for small businesses.

As this graph shows, small businesses, overall, did very well at over $65.5 billion. It also shows that businesses that can be classified as small disadvantaged businesses (SDB), women-owned small businesses (WOSB) or veteran-owned small businesses (VSB) have a lot of room to grow.

It is also interesting to note that one-quarter of the total dollars awarded to small business (i.e., $17.9 billion of the total $65.5 billion) was received in open competition. In other words, the little guys and gals beat out the big ones for $17.9 billion in government contracts. Not a bad return for the effort!

And how many small businesses were new to the game? In fiscal 2003, a total of 19,658 small businesses received their first federal contract with the government. These businesses were either women-owned or disadvantaged-owned, and were split almost 65/35 between female and male ownership.

Who Are the Government's Big Spenders?

Here's the top ten government agencies looking for contractors. For a more detailed breakdown of the figures, below, for each agency or department, go to the Federal Procurement Data Center site at http://www.fpdc.gov.

Top Ten Federal Agencies
Agency	Number of Contracts	Dollars (000)
Department of Defense	5,801,573	$214,102,980
Department of Energy	13,880	$ 21,102,619
NASA	21,322	$ 11,806,861
Department of Veteran Affairs	3,694,837	$ 8,523,338
General Services Administration	616,852	$ 8,407,635
Department of Health & Human Services	239,449	$ 6,746,469
Department of Agriculture	178,030	$ 4,258,233
Department of Justice	277,584	$ 4,045,426
Department of Interior	87,892	$ 3,704,164
Department of Transportation	44,084	$ 3,382,456
Top Ten Totals	10,975,503	$286,080,181
Note: Although the number of contracts decreased by some 200,000, the dollars rose substantially by almost a $100 billion comparing FY 2001 with FY 2003 data. The Department of Homeland Security reported in at 11th position with $3.3 billion. This figure will likely increase in FY2004.

The complete data for FY 2003 and prior years is available in Acrobat Reader format at the Federal Procurement Data Center web site. Select the Fiscal Year of interest and download.

Work Smart

Another useful web site for information on government contracting is Win Government Contracts. This site can help you to navigate some of the government's databases or to find a PTAC counselor near you.