Contract Vehicles are useful for selling products to regularize the prices. It is used to streamline the selling methods in the country to buy and sell goods and services.
Why do we need contract vehicles?
Contract vehicles is a method employed by the government to gain the best out of products’ buying and selling techniques. The government takes various benefits out of this method:
· Negotiations, terms, conditions, and pricing are usually pre-approved.
· Little competition for the firms who have successfully acquired contracts with the government.
· Ensures better pricing for the customers due to large quantity-based bargaining.
· Small businesses can also take part with bigger vendors and gain expertise and experience. In fact, most of the scheduling has been put together to promote small businesses.
· Financial stability of the firm is ensured by a regularized method of selling products.
· It helps to reduce administrative costs. For instance, if the government does not regularize the sale of a product such as a railway track frames, firstly, the government will have to send the tender invites to all the possible firms in the world. It would have to examine and give extra acquisition costs for its establishment. In the case of contract vehicles, whoever wants to sell their products will be regularized according to the government.
What all comes under it?
The officials that procure contracts for the government may avail services as well as goods. The vendors may be chosen from various verticals as well. Some of them are mentioned below:
· Cloud Computing
· Office Supplies
· Wireless Plans
· Support Staffing
· Hardware
· Maintenance, Operations, Repair
· Mail Delivery Services
Dig a little deeper – Schedules
There are different kind of schedules that products may apply depending on the kind of verticals it belongs. Some of the major ones are listed below:
1. GSA Schedules
These Schedules are useful for various kind of products such as IT, Hardware, any kind of goods. It does not eliminate business and does not guarantee business. You would still be competing with other organizations. Visit the link below to understand GSA Scheduling better:
2. Indefinite Delivery/ Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) Schedule
It is like a fixed time delivery or fixed amount delivery mechanism. The contract is valid until either the fixed time specified gets over or the fixed quantity is reached. All the requirements are met in that stipulated period. You can understand better in the following video link:
3. Government-wide acquisition contract (GWAC) Schedule
It is a pre-compete kind of contract. All the organizations competing are evaluated based on a basic set of conditions and the contract is given to the organization, which performs best according to the performance and social circumstances. You can refer the following video link for further details:
Overall, regularization of buying and selling of products and services with competition reduced to a pool of organizations and ensuring quality products to services is contract vehicles. It is a win-win for the client organizations as well as customers. It is beneficial to the government as well as it helps to curb malicious practices that may take place due to irregular vendors distributing products within the country.