Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI) - Office Supplies (OS3)

<p>A questions</p><p>1. What is the expected primary order source/Point of Sale? For an example is it going to be from our e-commerce site or thru GSA Advantage?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Based on GSA&rsquo;s announcement below yesterday, we recommend delay of the OS3 solicitation based on the fact that this change may have unforeseen and unintended consequences for decreasing or even eliminating small business award dollars for OS3 versus OS2. Certainly a more thorough discussion by stakeholders on this important change is needed.</p><p>As GSA has pointed out many times in the question and answer process to the OS3 draft RFQ, OS3 contracts will not be based off of Multiple Award Schedule Contracts as OS2 was. The assumption that a small business preference will have the same results in OS3 as in OS2 may not necessarily be the case. GSA can confirm the actual numbers but let us say OS2 had 15 award slots and there were 41 other than small business Schedule holders who could compete for OS2 awards at the time. That would a difference of 26 (41-15) between the numbers of award slots and the number of large businesses that could compete for those awards. GSA&rsquo;s expectation that it could increase small business dollars under the OS2 award scenario seems reasonable.</p><p>Let us say GSA increases the number of award slots in OS3 substantially to 30. How many other than small businesses are registered on SAM.gov for solicitation NAICs codes 322121, 339940, 325992, 322121 that could compete for those 30 awards? Is it several hundred? Several thousand? More than a hundred thousand? I would certainly expect that the number of large businesses registered for those NAICs codes is well over 56 (30+26).</p><p>When the same comparison is applied for OS2 and OS3 award slots compared to disabled veteran award slots, the implications become potentially even more unbalanced.</p><p>The small business preference may not have the same effect in OS3 as in OS2 due to the number of large businesses elgible to compete for OS3 as written versus the number of businesses who were eligible to compete for OS2. We ask that GSA answer Yes or No whether it can guarantee that small business award dollars will increase based on the announced change. We ask that GSA also answer Yes or No on whether large businesses could capture all award slots for OS3 based on the change announced yesterday. If the answer to the first question is No or the answer to the second question is Yes, allowing stakeholders less than 24 hours to comment on this change is not nearly enough time. Stakeholders should be given a chance to discuss their viewpoint on such an important change before Congress and the President. The GAO and the SBA should be allowed an opportunity to assess how this change may affect OS3 versus OS2 dollars before solicitation release.</p>

<p>So they&#39;re using this technicality to eliminate small business set asides?? Please explain.&nbsp; I guess that meeting with NOPA went opposite as expected.</p>