The Erosion of Public Bids

Public bids are eroding because they are becoming increasingly impractical and cumbersome, though not because federal buyers want to limit competition. An overburdened procurement system has created fewer public bids and greater use of what’s known as Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts. We’ll take a closer look at these multi-vendor, pre-negotiated, price-list types of contracts in a moment.

The use of public bids to make purchases is giving way to the use of IDIQs but not entirely. Public bids are still used for the following five reasons:

  1. to award a follow-on contract for ongoing services or more of the same product
  2. for large, highly visible buys
  3. when the buy is not overly complex
  4. when there is enough contracting staff to do a public bid
  5. to promote competition (or the appearance of competition)

Where can you find IDIQ contracts?  The IDIQ Search Engine

IDIQ contracts are the wave of the future, don't get left behind.

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Get up to speed on IDIQs and don't miss out on the next big opportunity.  Fedmarket's offers the following IDIQ courses:

To find out more about IDIQs and selling to the government, click here.

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