Federal Geospatial Market: An Overview

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Federal Geospatial MarketAn Overview

• Tina Cary, PhD
• President, Cary and Associates
• Presented 2 February 2004
• MAPPS Winter Meeting, Phoenix

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Did you know that

• (on average) every 48 minutes of every workday
  the federal government reports another
  transaction for geo-technology products and
  services?
• And the average value of every transaction is
  more than 2 million dollars?

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Key Questions

• What is the business opportunity?
• How much does the government spend every year on
  geotechnology?
• Which agencies buy geotechnology goods and
  services?
• What do the agencies buy?
• What vendors do they buy from today?
• What can we expect in the future?

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What Data Are Available?

• Congress also has questions about the federal
  budget
• What is the geographic distribution of
  contractors?
• What are the socio-demographic characteristics of
  contractors?
• and more
• Congress established the Federal Procurement Data
  System to provide answers

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Federal Procurement Data System

• Contract spending is reported by civilian and DoD
  agencies on Forms SF279 and SF281
• Required all transaction of 25,000 or more
• Optional smaller transactions
• Not required to report US Postal Service,
  Legislative Branch (Congress, GPO, GAO, etc) and
  Judicial Branch

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Federal Procurement Data System

• Data Collected
• Federal agency awarding the contract
• Contract identification number
• Contracting office name and address
• Date agency made award
• Name and address of company to which contract is
  awarded
• City, state, or country where service is
  performed or item is manufactured
• Amount of award
• (continued)

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Federal Procurement Data System

• Kind of contract action (new, modification, order
  under GSA Schedule, termination)
• Principal product or service
• North American Industry Classification System
  (NAICS) code
• Whether competitive or noncompetitive
• Type of Business (size, disadvantaged status,
  state/local government, profit or nonprofit,
  etc.)
• and dozens more

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Federal Procurement Data System

• How good are the FPDS data?
• Not ideal quality

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House Hearing 10 June 2003

• Geospatial Information
• A Progress Report on Improving Our Nations
  Map-Related Data Infrastructure
• How much does the government spend on geospatial
  data?
• And which agencies use the data? For what?
• Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL), Chairman of
• Technology, Information Policy,
  Intergovernmental Relations and Census
  Subcommittee
• of the House Government Reform Committee

We dont know. Billions of dollars are being
spent but federal agencies do not fully or
accurately report their geospatial activities.
Mark Forman, Administrator for the Office
of E-Government Information Technology
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GAO Audit of FPDS Data
December 30, 2003 Dear Mr. Bolten The purpose
of this letter is to convey our serious and
continuing concerns with the reliability of the
data contained in the Federal Procurement Data
System (FPDS) Congress and executive branch
agencies rely on FPDS to assess the impact that
governmentwide acquisition policies and process
are having on the system generally, as well as
with respect to specific geographical areas,
markets, and socio-economic goals. Yet despite
the importance of the data, we continue to find
that FPDS data are inaccurate and incomplete.
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Federal Procurement Data System

• How good are the FPDS data?
• Not of the desired quality
• Then why use them?
• The best spending data available
• Approximations are better than guesses
• Our methodology sidesteps some of the problems

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Methodology

• Sources
• Federal Procurement Database System (FPDS)
• Proprietary database of geotech companies
• Analysis Tool
• Microsoft Access

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Company database

• 1200 companies in North America
• Broad definition of geotech
• GIS and image processing software
• Data conversion and digitizing
• Satellite and aerial imagery
• Environmental management and consulting
• GIS consulting and application development
• Surveying mapping services
• Professional engineering services

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The Process

• The FPDS purchasing data are delivered on CD-ROM
  in Access database format.
• Our list of companies was used to extract from
  the approximately half-million actions in the
  detailed reports approximately 2,500 actions per
  year in geotechnology.

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• Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,
  it deosn't mttaer  in waht oredr the ltteers in a
  wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the 
  frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The
  rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed
  it wouthit porbelm.Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid
  deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, butthe wrod
  as a wlohe.

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Findings

• Overview of reported federal procurement
• Number of actions
• Dollars
• Geotechnology
• By agency
• By category
• Vendors

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Federal Procurement 2000-02
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Federal Procurement 2000-02
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Geotechnology

• 393 companies from our list of 1200 were found in
  the FPDS data
• Number of actions averaged 2500 per year
• The actions involved 117 agencies
• The actions totaled more than 5 billion/year
• 2 of total reported spending

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Federal Procurement 2000-02
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• Geotechnology Procurement
• by
• Agency

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Geotechnology by Agency
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Geotechnology by Agency
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Geotechnology by Agency

• Seven agencies in the top ten every year
• Of those seven, only NASA and Federal Technology
  Service are not defense-related

• Top ten agencies consistently account for 88 of
  total spending on geotech
• the other 107 agencies spend 600-750 million

Other
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• Geotechnology Procurement
• by
• Category

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Geotechnology by Category

• SIC (2000 01) and NAICS (2002) codes of vendors
• Six high-level categories
• Computer related services
• Engineering services
• Other services
• Research
• Products/equipment
• Software

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Geotechnology by Category
Table 5
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Geotechnology by Category
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• Vendors

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Top ten vendors

• Top four are consistent year-to-year
• SAIC is number one every year
• Top ten vendors account for 70 of dollar-value
  of all geotechnology contracts
• 383 vendors share the remaining 30, or 1.5
  billion

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Review of Findings

• The federal government reports purchases of
  geotechnology products and services worth more
  than 5 billion per year
• For the three years analyzed, geotech was
  consistently 2 of the total reported value of
  transactions
• 393 vendors supplied 117 agencies through 2500
  actions with an average value of 2 million per
  action

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The Future

• Continuation of transition to e-government and
  e-commerce
• Increasing use of credit cards for purchases
  under 25,000
• FPDS-NG
• A single vendor database

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Trends in Credit Card Use
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Trends in Credit Card Use
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What Does This Mean to Us?

• If you offer products or services in the range
  under 25,000
• If you do not accept credit cards, you may want
  to begin reviewing that decision more frequently
• The day may come when failure to accept credit
  cards will be a disadvantage to your business

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FPDS Transition Underway
FY2004 is entirely in FPDS-NG

• FPDS
• Data available in 3 to 9 months
• Details about 500,000 transactions and aggregated
  information about 11.5 million transactions
• 36-40 per detailed transaction (estimate)

• FPDS-NG
• Data available in one week or less
• Details about all 12 million actions
• Provide direct on-line access to managers
• Do it for less - 1/transaction
• Be interoperable

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Single Vendor Database

• In the past small businesses had to register in
  PRO-net to be identified as a small business and
  register in Central Contractor Registration (CCR)
  if they wished to bid on defense-related
  projects.
• Beginning 1 January 2004, SBAs PRO-net has been
  integrated with CCR

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Thank You

• For more information
• Cary and Associates
• http//caryandassociates.com
• 303.774.8415