Should My Small Business Respond to a Sources Sought or RFI? | Episode 42

05-04-2023 • 8分

The purpose of a sources sought notification is to determine if a small business can perform required contract work, while a Request for Information’s (“RFI”) purpose is to collect written information about the capabilities of various suppliers. Where a sources sought notification may seek to learn more about performance ability relative to a defined future requirement, an RFI seeks to obtain more specifics including commercial practices and pricing,

In this episode of FedBiz’5 we host Senior Contracting Specialist and former Federal Government Contracting Official, Frank Krebs, to discuss if your business should respond to a sources sought notification or RFI request.

What’s the difference between a Sources Sought Notification and RFI?

According to the Federal Acquisition Regulations (“FAR”), a sources sought notification is a government market research tool to determine if there are two or more capable businesses or small businesses that can perform the requirements of a planned contract.

Typically, when using a sources sought notification a federal agency has clear requirements and is attempting to make a determination if they should set aside the contract for small businesses or even further define it to a socio-economic category of small business, such as woman-owned or service disabled veteran-owned small business.

So, an agency trying to determine if a small business can handle a project of a defined size and scope would use a sources sought notification, especially if they want to use a set aside contract for a socio-economic category. Based on the response, the sources sought response can provide some level of assurance that small businesses can complete the project or contract.

Using an RFI, the agency is seeking assistance from the business community on defining the specific requirements of a contract. This typically involves the agency stating their needs and wanting to hear from industry vendors how they would propose achieving the end result. This information is then used to define the specific requirements for the statement of work or the performance work statement when the RFP is released.

Very often agencies confuse these two requests (sources sought and RFI) or combine parts of both into one request. So whether it is a sources sought or an RFI, it’s important to be prepared to review it thoroughly and respond accordingly.

Should a small business respond to either of these government requests?

The simple answer to that question is - YES… as long as it falls within your primary area of expertise.

The most important principle is to make sure the request falls within your primary or secondary core competency. Government contracting is a competitive environment. So while you may have several areas of expertise in your field, it’s crucial to stay focused. You can easily become distracted by trying to go after every request that may or may not fit your business.

Those requests that do not fall within your core competencies, do not waste your time as you will be fighting an uphill battle against companies that are more closely aligned with the requests. The only caveat may be when the request is from one of your primary targeted agencies.

The importance of staying focused is to save you time and resources. You want to be competitive and prepare a quality response.

Continue Reading