The following article was originally published by Defense Visual Information Distribution Service on July 22, 2020. It was written by Ferdinand Detres Jr.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha District has continued to lead the way in using its various contracting programs to accomplish its mission in a continuously changing environment.

Across the federal government, each agency has a specific policy for when GWACs (Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts) and mandatory strategic sourcing vehicles should be used. One of the challenges is whether a policy requires IT buys to be competed through NASA SEWP (Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement) or, for example, if DHS needs to compete through FirstSource II—none of the existing GWACs or strategic sourcing vehicles are available on the same platform. That is, until now.

Unison Marketplace is stacked with over 100,000 registered Sellers and a full-service sourcing team ready to help you find the competition you need on your requirements...even the super odd ones.

The Government Purchase Card (GPC) program has been around since 1986. Over the past 30+ years, the federal government has experienced new generations of charge card contracts and every generation has benefited from innovative charge card offerings. Today, the GPC program operates under the General Services Administration (GSA) SmartPay program and is the largest charge card and payment solutions program in the world with over 556,000 accounts.

A Look at Small Business Utilization on Unison Marketplace in FY19

Directing spending dollars to American small businesses is a central goal of federal contracting. In 1953, Congress passed the Small Business Act which declared “the Government should aid, counsel, assist, and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns,” in order to "insure that a fair proportion of the total sales of Government property be made to such enterprises, and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of the Nation".1 This directive serves to support a healthy and diverse supplier base of small businesses, which are the backbone of the American economy and job creators in communities across the country.