By Jon Olsen, Senior Procurement Consultant
One of the many services that the KYPTAC offers to our clients is assistance with finding potential opportunities of interest to our clients. We have several methods which include putting our clients in touch with organizations that may be seeking a specific product or service, advising our clients of potential opportunity notices provided by other companies seeking diversity partners, and our bid match service. Other means of finding opportunities are the SAM.gov website, the KY VSS system, and Agency Forecasts of opportunities.
SAM.gov is the government portal for all Federal opportunities expected to exceed $25,000 in value which require a notice as specified in FAR 5.201. There are some exceptions, but generally most Federal Government acquisitions will be publicly posted on www.sam.gov. To find the available opportunities, interested parties need to navigate to the SAM Home page and click on the link for “Contract Opportunities”. This will bring you to the page with a search field – “Search Contract Opportunities”. Searches may be made on a variety of filters including, key words, Agency, NAICS codes, etc. There is no requirement to have an account in SAM to conduct a search, but this is recommended as it will allow you to save searches and receive notices of updates to searches.
KY Vendor Self Service (VSS) is the state system where active solicitations are posted, as well as awarded acquisitions and other information. The VSS is located on the KY Finance & Administration Cabinet website at eProcurement (ky.gov). Anyone can search the available opportunities by clicking on the link for “Guest Access” and searching by key words or other filters available under the “Advanced Search” feature. Like SAM, there is no requirement to create an account or register with the state to view opportunities, but registration is part of the process of becoming a vendor with the state and it also enables other helpful features in the system.
These two systems include notices of active or open solicitations that are currently in the acquisition process. The SAM system also includes sources sought or sole source acquisitions where the agency may be conducting market research in advance of a specific opportunity or as required for acquisitions deemed to be available from only one source.
Another source of opportunities is through forecasts of opportunities available on the Acquisition.gov website under the “Procurement Forecasts” link (Agency Recurring Procurement Forecasts | Acquisition.GOV). Clicking on this link will bring up the “Agency Recurring Procurement Forecasts” site where the agencies provide pertinent information on current and upcoming acquisitions for the respective agencies. These opportunities are forecast through the specific fiscal year and afford an advance notice of the specific requirements and anticipated date of solicitation release. This is a great way to find out about future requirements and begin researching and planning for a potential bid or proposal. Advance planning is key to gaining an edge in many competitive acquisitions and this is a great way to find potential opportunities and begin your market research and planning activities to successfully compete in the Government arena.
The KYPTAC is a great resource available to assist our clients in navigating these resources and finding opportunities consistent with client capabilities!
This article was originally published in our monthly KYPTAC Newsletter. If you have any questions about this topic, your KYPTAC consultant is here to help! Not a client? Sign up here.