QuestionsAnswers_for_Solicitation_SBAHQ18Q011.pdf

Questions/Answers for Solicitation SBAHQ-18-Q-0011

Research on Small Businesses in Rural Areas

1. Can the writing samples provided be from proposed candidates?

• The writing sample can be any research study, literature review, or journal article on the topic or related to the topic authored by key personnel of the proposed research team.

2. Can an offeror use a proposed candidate's experience and references to satisfy the past performance requirements?

• Proposals will be evaluated according to the factors in the solicitation notification instructions to offerors. The Government will evaluate the offeror on past performance.

The qualifications of the offeror’s researcher(s) will be evaluated in the technical approach factor.

3. Per section b2 (Technical Approach, writing sample) in the Instructions to Offerors, offerors are requested to submit a writing sample and the sample “must be ….a sample academic journal style literature review for the research topic listed in the Statement of Work”. Can you please confirm that the writing sample should reflect the literature review for the research topic, i.e., Research on Small Businesses in Rural Areas only, and should not reflect some other topic?

• Yes. The writing sample should be written by the proposed research team and related to the topic of the Statement of Work which is small businesses in rural areas.

4. Per c (Past Performance) in the Instructions to Offerors, offerors are required to provide documentation and references for past performance on previous comparable projects in the past three years." Our proposed project staff have extensive past performance directly relevant to the scope of work. However, as a newly established small business, this past performance was conducted for prior employers and does not reflect contracts under our firm. Will the prior past performance of our proposed project staff be sufficient to reflect the likelihood of success on the project and satisfy this requirement?

• The Government will evaluate the offeror’s past performance under the past performance factor and will evaluate the qualifications of the offeror’s researcher(s) in accordance with the researcher qualifications portion of the technical approach factor. In the case where an offeror is without a record of relevant prior experience or past performance, the offeror will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance, or disqualified from award.

5. On average, what level of effort, or total budget amount, does the government anticipate for individual awards?

• The Office of Advocacy expects a level of effort commensurate with meeting the deliverables and performance requirements of the SOW. The Government cannot disclose its budget estimate.

6. The Instruction to Offerors, Section e, states the “technical and past performance when added together shall not exceed 25 pages”. In addition, Section a5 states to facilitate processing the following sections should be in separate adobe pdf files: technical, past performance, price and writing sample. Please confirm that the technical and past performance sections should be separate files but together should not exceed 25 pages.

• Yes. Technical and past performance sections should be in separate files, and when added together should not exceed 25 pages. This page limit does not include the cover page, company credentials, references, and writing samples.

7. For this project, we primarily intend to analyze county level panel data on rural small business presence, across the nation and over time, using a panel regression model, for decomposing the determinants of county level variations. In addition, we came across interesting OECD statistics that could shed light on macro level variations on the subject, e.g. why does USA have the lowest rate of self-employed across all OECD countries?

Our question for you is about how best to determine the scope of our proposal, given the many possible directions we could take.

Is it preferable that we partition our proposal into segments and quote each segment separately, or submit a single proposal with one quote?

• The Office of Advocacy intends to procure a firm fixed price contract. Offerors should propose a total cost / price to complete the research requirements within the anticipated period of performance according the deliverables schedule. Offerors should propose a research scope that is clear and feasible to complete within the anticipated period of performance, and best addresses the research requirements.