Author Archive

Who’s Capturing the Largest Share of Army Dollars? Underlying Subsidiaries Bring in Big Dollars.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

We all know the names of the largest prime contractors doing business with the federal government, but seldom do we get to analyze the market share of separate reporting units of those large organizations. To get such an idea, we separated out large prime contractors such as Lockheed, SAIC, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon (to name a few) by their individual reporting units.

The Fedmine report we prepared (Top 100 Individual Prime Contracting Entities by Market Share at the Dept of Army) compares single whole corporations or the individual subsidiaries / reporting units of large parent organizations (as indicated by distinct DUNS numbers; aggregate parent entities were not included). The report covers a 7 year period at the Department of the Army, including the current fiscal year as of January 26, 2010. The top contractor may come as a shock, because it is an entity not among the large organizations named above. This top contractor is not entirely unknown, but it is a name one might use as a “lifeline” to “phone a friend” in a quiz contest such as “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”. (more…)

Top GSA Schedule Contractors by Schedule Type – FY 2010 YTD

Friday, November 20th, 2009

A quick look at the overall Top 100 contractors receiving GSA Schedule contracts by Schedule Type in FY 2010 which began October 1, 2009 reveals a healthy mix of spending across a variety of schedule types.

While the GSA Information Technology Schedule (IT 70) remains king for the most part, the top contractor on the list provided below holds a GSA Financial and Business Solutions Schedule (FABS 520) with close to $52 million in sales, walloping the top GSA IT Schedule 70 contract holder by almost 4 times as of the tally we ran on 11/19/09. The Top GSA IT Schedule 70 contractor had only $14 million in sales thus far.

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Real-Time Perspectives on Real Federal Contracts

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Perhaps it was never going to be possible in your life time to ever be able to view companies winning federal contracts in real-time. Push aside those cynical thoughts and take a chair…

It is now not only possible to get a free list of contract awardees on a DAILY basis, but it is for the first time also possible to view this information in a variety of different flavors. The link below will take you to a live section of the FEDMINE.US website where you can, from now on, run free real-time reports on a daily basis. (more…)

To Set-Aside Or Not… Or Wait To Get Lucky

Friday, October 9th, 2009

On 9/4/09 we looked at contracts awarded to small businesses using ARRA funds where the competition was limited to certain types of contracts. Those were contract awards to companies with federal certifications such as an 8A, Hub Zone, and SDVOSB to name a few. The latest version of this report can be found here.

This time the focus of our analysis was on contract award totals for each socio economic category the federal government works towards fulfilling goals mandated by Congress.  This new report can be downloaded here.

The notable areas of interest from these reports are most particularly in the way the numbers bring to light the dollars the  government actually takes credit for having awarded to small businesses, as opposed to the amount of dollars it sets aside for them with a clear intention of awarding to a small business. The set-asides when used, clearly establish the government’s intent to award a particular contract to a small business to meets its goals. And what gets awarded to a business when the government does not use a set-aside is an award from full and open competition. It is here that the government really gets lucky, because it ends up taking credit for dollars a small business is awarded regardless of whether it ever intended to award it to a small business.  The fact that a small business is competitive enough to take on a Lockheed Martin or IBM to win business is to the credit of the small business, but the government gets to take credit for having met its goals anyway because it so happened that the contract winner was a small business.

There is an interesting distinction between “intended”  amounts and what the government “happens” to get credit for!

For details on how the analysis was performed and how the percentages were calculated please email Ashok Mehan at amehan@fedmine.us, or visit www.fedmine.us for various other reports.

In Search Of The Lost Opportunity

Friday, September 25th, 2009

With the government fiscal year winding down toward the end of this month, we took a look at the sheer number of solicitations by document type released by the federal government this calendar year. No doubt, folks find it hard sifting through myriads of text to locate the right opportunity.

There were a total of 6 solicitation document types, 3 of them making up close to 98% of all opportunities. As of this writing, the 3 opportunity document types were broken down as follows:

• 52,399 presolicitations
• 48,818 Combined Solicitations
• 9614 Sources Sought Notices

Our detailed analysis for the Top 10 NAICS category in each of those categories can be downloaded as a spreadsheet at this link:

For further details and other new reports such as this one, go to www.fedmine.us or email amehan@fedmine.us.

ARRA VS. ARRA

Friday, September 4th, 2009

We analyzed all ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) spending to find out which agencies were the:

Top Federal Small Business Contracting Agencies specific to ARRA spending.

The analysis of the percentages is currently confined to showing dollars spent as a percentage of all ARRA spending by all agencies. Later we will do another comparison showing small business categories and their percentages relative to all agencies vs. relative to their agency.

The Dept of Energy is by far the biggest ARRA spending agency  year to date  with just over 63% of all Federal ARRA spending, and they contracted roughly 20% of overal small business federal dollars to small businesses.

For further details and other new reports such as this one, go to www.fedmine.us or email amehan@fedmine.us.

USACE Norfolk District is a Favorite for SDVOSBs

Friday, August 14th, 2009

The US Army Corps Of Engineers has routinely crossed its small business goals by a handsome margin, but lately due in part to BRAC assignments, their numbers have fallen. This is because BRAC work is the bailiwick of large businesses for the most part, and the only program under which large businesses team up with other large businesses, not small businesses.

Nevertheless… Jack Beecher’s Norfolk District Small Business Program Office who has held just about every position in the Contracting Division from Purchasing Agent to Chief since 1974, is the top contracting office in the country for Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business awards at the Agency.  In an  8/13/09 Federal Contracting Executive Forum, Beecher shared USACE Norfolk District’s plan for Service-Disabled Veterans and Woman-owned businesses, and what’s on the BRAC/MILCON acquisition plan agenda (see more).  In FY08 the Agency increased its SDVOSB awards by 150% going from $217M in 2007 to $543M in 2008. Beecher’s Norfolk District led the Corps in both SDVOSB dollars – $101M, and percentage – 13%.

Many companies have some confusion in understanding this Agency and its mission, because it not only does Civil & Military programs, but works on behalf of several other agencies. Its funding sources are wide and varied. There isn’t much small business ARRA related work here either, mostly dredging and shoreland protection civil work that large businesses do.  Below is a report that aids in understanding this agency’s spending by NAICS Sector:

Federal Contracts by Industry Sector for US Army Corps Of Engineers, DODAAC W91236

For further details and other new reports such as this one, go to www.fedmine.us or email amehan@fedmine.us.

Top Contractors And Agencies For ARRA Contracts

Friday, July 31st, 2009

We did a compilation of the Top Federal Contractors, the Top 100 Small Business Federal Contractors receiving federal contracts under ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), and the Top Agencies awarding contracts under the new Act.  The reports posted below are current based on data obtained from FPDS-NG as of 07/30/09:

• Top 100 Federal Contractors receiving ARRA contracts
• Top 100 Small Business Federal Contractors receiving ARRA contracts
• Top Agencies awarding contracts under ARRA

For further details and other new reports such as this one, go to www.fedmine.us or email amehan@fedmine.us.

The Defense Eagle is Spreading Its Wings But Not Its Money

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Fiscal year 2009 defense spending is soaring literally like an aeroplane! The top industry code where the Navy and the Air Force spent most of their money – NAICS Code 336411, Aircraft Manufacturing. The Army on the other hand spent most of its money so far in NAICS Code 541330, Engineering Services. But contracts are hardly being competed.

• The Navy spent over 22.78% or $ 7,915,420,099 in its top sector,  and chose not to compete close to 50% of all its contracts so far amounting close to $34.7 Billion. Details…
• The Army on the other has spent $5,753,130,677  in its top industry sector amounting to 16.6% of its total spending, and chose not to compete 54% of its total spending – close to $34.5 Billion. Details...
• The Air Force spent $7,575,487,183  or  23.87% of its money in its top industry sector, and chose not to compete 44.08% of its awarded contracts, amounting to $31.7 Billion reported thus far. Details…

For further details about these numbers and linked reports, email Ashok Mehan at: amehan@fedmine.us, or visit: www.fedmine.us for more information.  If you mention Aronson, you will receive a 10% discount off standard subscription rates!

Top 10 Federal Small Contractors – Not So Small After All

Friday, June 19th, 2009

We did a quick roundup of who might be the top small businesses in the federal government as of June 2009. What is most surprising, if it is at all, is that none of the companies on the Top 10 list really appear to be small! Go figure.

Top 10 Federal Small Business Contractors (Not so small by any means):

Percentages based on total analyzed spending of $ 223,191,890,355. For further details about these and other reports please visit: to www.fedmine.us or email Ashok Mehan at: amehan@fedmine.us.