As the Biden Administration focuses on strategies to support small businesses, including small-disadvantaged businesses, implementing TDR across the entire Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) will play a profound, strategic role in reducing barriers to entry, increasing access to the commercial market, and expanding opportunities for small businesses…
Expanding TDR across the entire MAS portfolio further streamlines the contracting process by eliminating the unnecessary, burdensome compliance costs associated with the outdated Commercial Sales Practices (CSP) and Price Reduction Clause (PRC). In particular, the terms of the PRC are highly complex. For example, the PRC requires MAS contractors to track pricing for independent private, commercial transactions, and if the PRC is triggered, the lower tracking customer price becomes the MAS contract price. MAS contractors invest in costly compliance programs, personnel, training, and systems to comply with the PRC. These overhead compliance costs divert critical funding towards unproductive management operations at the expense of direct investment to support customer agency needs…
Expansion of TDR and its elimination of barriers to entry aligns with the Administration’s goals for increasing procurement spending with small businesses, including small-disadvantaged businesses. It is especially timely given the increasing focus on the shrinking industrial base serving the Federal government, especially among small businesses. For example, according to the SBA, the number of small business prime contractors decreased by 6%, from 69,400 in 2020, to 65,428 in 2021. Further, there is data from GAO and others indicating that, from FY2011 to FY2020, the number of small businesses receiving DoD contract awards decreased by 43% (dropping from 42,723 to 24,296). During that same period, GDP grew by 34% from 2011 ($15.6 T) to 2020 ($20.9 T), and the total number of businesses in the U.S. economy also grew, increasing 7% from 2010 to 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021) … Read the full article here.