IDIQ Contracts

If your firm is looking to engage in federal contracting, an important marketing avenue not to miss are federal IDIQ Contracts.

What is an IDIQ Contract? (Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity Contracts): If your firm is selected to be on an IDIQ contract your firm is then one of the only options for federal orders/agencies using this contracting vehicle. Your firm’s IDIQ contract will contain a list with your standardized pricing. Just because your firm is placed on an IDIQ contract does not mean you will receive orders. Your firm may or may not receive an order from the contract as there is still competition for the contract itself, but the odds are good that you will! In effect the IDIQ contract simply reduces the federal buyer’s options to a group of small qualified vendors.

This reduced list of vendors provides more standardization and uniformity to many procurements in both broad and specialized areas.

Why is this so important? Embedded in most of these contracts is language such as the following:

a “portion of contract awards will be reserved for small business and 8(a) small businesses. These reserve awards will be made to the best value offeror(s) within each reserve category, in accordance with the evaluation criteria stated in the solicitation.”

So in other words some portion of this contract will be given to the 8(a) certified firms as well as other SBA/VA Certification holders that took the initiative and effort of getting placed on the IDIQ. Those that did not are unable to receive contracting dollars from the IDIQ. In many cases the IDIQs overall value is in the billions of dollars, and under a handful of 8(a) firms were even aware of the IDIQs existence so competition can be very low. An example of a portion of an IDIQ carved out specifically for 8(a) firms is the following recent contract for federal janitorial services in the State of Florida. Below is the list of locations that were reserved for 8(a) certified firms.

IDIQ Contracts should be part of any firm’s federal marketing strategy. 8(a) firms have only 9 years of eligibility and, therefore, it is critical to get into the IDIQ arena early as these contracts are critical to maximize a firm's contract awards while in the 8(a) program.