Over the previous eight years, the Protection Division has met its small enterprise prime contracting objectives, however extra might be executed, stated the director of the Protection Division’s Workplace of Small Enterprise Applications.
Throughout testimony Wednesday earlier than the Senate Armed Providers Committee’s subcommittee on readiness, Farooq A. Mitha and small enterprise administrators from the Military, Navy and Air Pressure instructed lawmakers concerning the boundaries small companies face when making an attempt to work with the division, instruments the division makes use of to extend small enterprise participation, and DOD’s just lately launched small business strategy.
“Small companies make up 99% of all companies in the USA and are a crucial contributor to our nationwide safety,” Mitha stated. “Final fiscal yr, the division spent $85.2 billion on small enterprise prime contracts, and almost 25% of the division’s prime contracts go to small companies.”
Whereas the division exceeded its objectives final yr for small, deprived companies and service-disabled veteran-owned small companies, Mitha stated, the full variety of small companies within the protection industrial base has declined during the last decade. And that is an issue for DOD and the nation’s safety, he stated.
“That is an financial and nationwide safety threat for our nation,” he stated. “We threat dropping mission-critical home capabilities, innovation and powerful provide chains. To answer this, the division is working to strengthen our small enterprise provide chains, enhance competitors and entice new entrants.”
Proper now, DOD has a number of applications in place to assist with that, Mitha instructed lawmakers. Included amongst these are the Mentor-Protege Program, the Rapid Innovation Fund Program, the APEX Accelerators and the Indian Incentive Program.
“The Mentor-Protege Program permits skilled corporations to supply enterprise developmental help to protege corporations,” Mitha stated. The proteges are small companies or new entrants.
“The mentorship permits proteges to turn out to be suppliers, as prime and subcontractors, to the division and different federal businesses,” he stated.
Inside the Mentor-Protege Program, Mitha stated, mentor corporations present help in a spread of areas, together with inside enterprise administration methods, engineering assist and manufacturing assist.
Over the previous 4 years, Mitha stated, protege corporations carried out a median of over $5 billion in contract work for the federal authorities yearly.
The division additionally at the moment funds 96 APEX Accelerators throughout the USA, Mitha stated, which assist small companies learn to work with the federal authorities. The accelerators had been beforehand branded Procurement Technical Help Facilities, however their new incarnation — with an expanded mission set — may also do issues like prepare small companies on the cybersecurity necessities essential to work at the moment with the Protection Division.
The division’s Fast Innovation Fund helps small companies in transferring applied sciences from prototype to manufacturing, whereas the Indian Incentive Program, he stated, offers a 5% rebate to a first-rate contractor on the full quantity subcontracted to Native American-owned companies.
Small companies face challenges in working with the federal authorities, Mitha stated. Included in these challenges are the complexities of working with DOD and the variety of entry factors obtainable to get on board. Moreover, he stated, are challenges confronted by small companies that threaten their capacity to work with DOD even when they wish to — which embody assembly cyber safety necessities and staying away from overseas possession management and affect, or FOCI.
“[These] are arguably essentially the most urgent points confronted by small companies,” Mitha stated. “Our adversaries routinely goal small companies, thus constructing efficient cybersecurity resilience into the protection industrial base for small companies is a crucial nationwide safety precedence.”
DOD’s Project Spectrum Platform offers small companies with each the data and instruments essential to guard the nation’s most important belongings in our on-line world, Mitha stated, including additionally that the division plans an enlargement of that platform to incorporate coaching associated to overseas possession, management or affect.
Mitha additionally instructed lawmakers that DOD’s web site https://business.defense.gov, will turn out to be a “one-stop store” for small companies which have by no means earlier than executed enterprise with DOD to lastly get entangled.
“We’ll have all of the forecasting, all of the completely different small enterprise applications, all of the assets which might be obtainable,” he stated. “An organization will not should go to twenty completely different web sites to determine tips on how to do enterprise with us.”
In January, DOD launched its new small enterprise technique. The technique, Mitha stated, focuses on three strategic aims, which embody implementing a unified administration method for small enterprise applications and actions, strengthening the division’s engagement and assist of small companies and making certain the division’s small enterprise actions align with nationwide safety priorities.
“The objective of that technique is to make sure small companies getting into the protection market perceive the contracting alternatives, assets obtainable to them, and the place to get assist,” Mitha stated.
The technique, he stated, requires, amongst different issues, the institution of a small enterprise integration group, the implementation of a typical coaching curriculum for small enterprise professionals within the acquisition workforce, and streamlining factors of entry into the protection market.