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Policy Priorities
GovEvolve is the leading advocacy organization for small and midsize businesses that support government innovation. GovEvolve works to support the technology industry by promoting public policies that encourage innovation and competitiveness. As the voice for these diverse businesses, GovEvolve’s mission is to help ensure that the government has access to the most modern technology. Even though governmentwide IT spend totals billions each year, the government continues to support IT equipment well beyond its intended lifecycle. Agencies that have begun to adopt emerging technologies struggle to keep pace with issues such as cybersecurity threats. GovEvolve supports mitigating the impediments to federal procurement and ensuring a robust acquisition landscape through engagement on the following issues:
1. Create a dedicated ITVAR NAICS code. The ITVAR exception under NAICS code 541519 is insufficient to categorize the products and services required in recent complex agency IT procurements. Issues and restrictions surrounding small business procurements have led to frequent misclassification of IT acquisitions and potential liability for contractors. Creating a dedicated ITVAR NAICS code, and an appropriate size standard, enables small contractors to provide the best possible IT solutions to the Government.
2. Align the SBA’s small business size standards to keep pace with the federal government’s larger buying trends. Ensuring NAICS codes used by resellers reflect the size of contracts/task orders being awarded by federal agencies is important to the survival of these small businesses. IT resellers typically operate on low margins – even though their annual receipts may be high, the size standard should be based on employee count rather than annual revenue.
3. Increase utilization of small business sole source awards. As the government continues to increase buying through larger vehicles and move away from direct contracts, there are less opportunities for small businesses to participate in the federal marketplace. To create a more harmonized contracting system to utilize small businesses, sole source thresholds should be raised and requirements streamlined for sole source contracts.
4. Adopt measures that preserve and expand ITVAR participation in the government IT marketplace. IT Value-Added Resellers serve as the essential link between technology manufacturers and government end-users. They do not simply resell hardware and software — they deliver integrated solutions that include configuration, installation, cybersecurity hardening, staff training, lifecycle management, and ongoing technical support. This value-added layer is what enables government agencies to actually deploy and operate the technology they purchase.
