Sobis, Inc is proud to announce its acceptance into the United States Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program. Sobis is a northern Virginia based consulting company formed in 2014 that provides consulting services to public and private sector clients. These services include: (1) Geographic Information System (GIS); (2) natural hazard risk assessment and mitigation planning; (3) information technology; (4) climate adaptation planning; (5) contract and financial management; (6) training, outreach, and capacity building; and (7) resilience planning.
What is the 8(a) Program?
The 8(a) Business Development Program is a business assistance program for small disadvantaged businesses. The 8(a) Program offers a broad scope of assistance to firms that are owned and controlled at least 51% by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. The 8(a) Program is an essential instrument for helping socially and economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs gain access to the economic mainstream of American society. The program helps thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs to gain a foothold in government contracting. Participation in the program is divided into two phases over nine years: a four-year developmental stage and a five-year transition stage.
What does it mean?
8(a) participants can receive sole-source contracts, up to a ceiling of $4 million for goods and services and $6.5 million for manufacturing. The Small Business Administration helps 8(a) firms build their competitive and institutional know-how and encourage participants in competitive acquisitions. 8(a) firms are also able to form joint ventures to bid on contracts. This enhances the ability of 8(a) firms to perform larger prime contracts and overcome the effects of contract bundling, the combining of two or more contracts together into one large contract.
“We are very much looking forward to this opportunity to build new partnerships and expand our operations with the Federal Government. This will allow us to offer new Information Technology services to the Federal Government,” says Sonya Ford (CEO).