GSA adds 4 woman-owned small businesses to Polaris
Gettyimages.com / Nick Dolding
By
Ross Wilkers
This portion of the massive government-wide IT vehicle now has 51 winners, and the General Services Administration says it is not done with making awards.
Four more companies have joined the roster of first phase awardees for the woman-owned track of Polaris, the massive government-wide contract vehicle agencies can use to buy IT services solutions from small businesses.
GSA’s additional choices of Digital Decypher, Fed Tec, Open San Consulting and The Prospective Group grow the number of Polaris WOSB Pool winners to 51.
Further award phases are in the works and no one has been officially eliminated from consideration, GSA said in its Tuesday notice to announce the new awards.
Polaris has a 10-year duration, inclusive of a five-year base period and up to five individual option years.
Back in February, GSA told 47 woman-owned small businesses they were official winners for phase one of the Polaris WOSB Pool. That move followed GSA’s initial announcement of 55 WOSB firms as “apparently successful offerors,” pending review of whether they were indeed WOSBs.
GSA is taking a staggered approach to making awards for both Polaris and Alliant 3, a companion IT services and solutions vehicle that is full-and-open. The agency received 293 proposals in total for the Polaris WOSB pool.
Polaris’ general small business pool remains the subject of several protests at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, while the HUBZone pool has 30 final winners and the service-disabled/veteran-owned pool has 23.