The General Services Administration (GSA) has recently launched a free online database – Forecast of Contracting Opportunities (FCO) – designed to aid small businesses with identifying relevant contract opportunities. There are several important things to know about the database.
First, FCO demonstrates both the GSA and the Office of Small Business Utilization's commitment to advocate for small businesses and local economic development by implementing practical tools to assist small businesses, thereby ensuring greater small business participation in GSA contracting.
Second, FCO, which went live on March 15, 2016, is currently searchable. However, it is still in beta format. The database has roughly 4,800 contract opportunities that can be searched by utilizing the different filtering criteria. The GSA expects to add to the number of contract opportunities as the website develops.
Third, the filtering criteria permits small businesses to search for contract opportunities based on contract value, socioeconomic category, agency, solicitation status, performance location, and the applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code.
Lastly, the GSA is actively seeking to improve the beta site and is seeking comments and feedback from database users, who can send emails to forecasthelp@gsa.gov. On March 23, 2016, GSA is also broadcasting a webinar to present the database and likely address common questions and comments. A link to the webinar will be posted on the GSA’s Office of Small Business Utilization’s Twitter account — @GSAOSBU — at 12:45 p.m. EST on March 23.
Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
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