The federal government cannot function without multi-vendor contracts. Such contracts are being used more frequently because there isn't any other efficient method for federal contracting officers to buy everything needed by program managers. Federal agencies are rushing to award their own multi-vendor contracts in competition with General Services Administration (GSA) contracts and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is issuing policies to slow down the duplication among multi-vendor contracts, particularly for information technology products and services. Agencies will be rushing to prove that their multi-vendor contracts are unique and badly needed to meet their objectives.

What federal purchasing procedure is open to small businesses and also allows any federal agency to buy virtually any product or service easily? The answer is a GSA Schedule contract. Vendors may submit a GSA Schedule offer at any time as opposed to other multi-vendor contracts which are open for a set or limited time period. Furthermore, an unlimited number of vendors may be an awarded a Schedule contract as opposed to other multi-vendor contracts which are only awarded to a pre-determined number of vendors. You are out of luck if an agency elects to use a particular multi-vendor contract and you weren't one of the winners. Since most of the large multi-vendor contracts are won by large businesses, it behooves small and medium-sized businesses wanting to compete for federal prime contracts to get on the GSA Schedule bandwagon.