5 Questions for USAID’s Small Business Program Director
Mauricio Vera explains why the Agency is thankful this week and all year for U.S. small businesses
As USAID’s director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU), Mauricio Vera and his team are responsible for advocating for U.S. small businesses in USAID contracting.
What makes for a great small business partner? USAID is constantly seeking capable small business partners with an innovative approach to development issues. For example, small businesses have been very effective in supporting our monitoring and evaluation, capacity development, and administrative and technical staffing requirements. Also, in the past few years they have become increasingly more skilled in almost all of the technical areas that USAID works in. This includes helping us to implement our health, economic growth, architecture/engineering, agriculture, environment, democracy and governance, rule of law, and other projects in every region of the world.
This year the Agency awarded approximately $790 million to small businesses out of a total portfolio of $5.4 billion in contracts directly to U.S. small businesses. This translates to approximately 14.6 percent of contracts, which exceeds USAID’s 2019 small business goal of 12.5 percent. Our contracting dollars to small businesses increased by more than $100 million from 2018 to 2019.
We get more details about how USAID continues to engage the small business community and why it is important in this Q&A to kick off our celebration of the first USAID Small Business Week.
Tell us about USAID’s focus on small businesses. Why the interest?
Small businesses are where the majority of new jobs and innovations originate in the U.S. so there are some fundamental macroeconomic reasons why we, along with other federal agencies, support the use of small businesses as partners. It also fits right in with our Agency’s current focus on expanding and diversifying our partner base and our New Partnerships Initiative.
What are some of the obstacles U.S. small businesses encounter when working overseas?
Small businesses face some of the same challenges that some of our large partners face when working overseas. The biggest difference is that the large partners generally have more daily access to our overseas staff whereas the small businesses who don’t have an in-country presence will be initially challenged in establishing those key relationships. They may also not have knowledge of the country context initially until they spend some time connecting either with local partners or with a large business which already has a presence in country.
Tell us the three things small businesses should do in order to succeed in the federal contracting arena.
We always tell them to “do their homework first” and this is especially true when marketing to USAID. There’s a significant amount of information on our Agency website so there’s no excuse for not being prepared when a small business entrepreneur has the opportunity to engage with agency staff.
They should also take every opportunity to meet and engage with USAID staff and current partners by participating in Agency small business outreach activities.
And when they do win a contract award, they should make sure they perform outstanding work because that’s the only way they will continue to be considered for future opportunities.
What do you think are key marketing techniques needed to pursue overseas contract opportunities with USAID?
Develop your management team to include people who have successful experience working with USAID, and in your business’ areas of expertise. This will give you tremendous insight on how to win contracts and how to perform at the high level of quality that USAID expects.
What are USAID’s top three small business objectives for FY 2020?
Continue to focus on expanding opportunities for small businesses with our overseas missions as we fully implement our Mission Small Business Goaling Program and host our second USAID Overseas Small Business Conference in Frankfurt, Germany, in March 2020. Second: Continue to meet our small business, disadvantaged, and women-owned small business goals and make an extra effort to focus on the socio-economic categories where we’ve struggled in the recent past: Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SDVOSB) and Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small businesses. And, third: Collaborate closely with our USAID colleagues in expanding our small business partner base as we implement the Agency’s new Acquisition and Assistance strategy and roll out the New Partnerships Initiative.
About the Authors
Teneshia Alston is the Senior Program Specialist for USAID’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization. Kimberly Ball is the Deputy Director for the same office.
Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization
Small Business Market Analysis Research Tool
Small Businesses
New Partnerships Initiative
Business Forecast
