High-Tech Government Contracting Essay

FedBizOpps, or FBO, is the Federal government’s web site that posts all Federal procurement opportunities over opportunities with a value over $25,000. It can be thought of as the U. S. Government’s proposal central, or better yet, a request for proposal (RFP) central (â€Å"TurboGSA/What is a FedBizOpps/What is FedBizOpps? ,† n. d. , para. 1). Top Three Reasons Why I believe FedBizOpps Will Enhance Opportunities for Minorities The top three reasons why I believe FedBizOpps will enhance opportunities for minorities is FedBizOpps gov (pronounced fed biz opps) provides a sophisticated search engine for finding more than 40,000 immediate RFP opportunities, as well as archived records. It also lists possible future federal contract opportunities. All GSA Schedule solicitations are also listed on FedBizOps which will assist in bidding for current and future contracts. Several training programs are available at the site to teach you the mechanics of using the FBO system (â€Å"TurboGSA/What is a FedBizOpps/What is FedBizOpps? ,† n. d. , para. 1). The Factors the Government Used to Design and Build This Website The factors the government used to design and build this website are global accessibility, ease of usage, and availability. Due to the need for the government to ensure that the world or every person accesses information in this website, the government made the opportunity accessible in the world wide website (instead of intranet). Through this effort by the government, it is possible for all people all over the world to catch up on what the federal government is doing in terms of procurement opportunities. In addition, the government wanted to ensure that the website is easy to use. Because the government had in mind that all people (minority and majority groups) will be using this website, the website was designed with the information posting page as the homepage to make it easy for people to use the website. The website itself is also a search engine for federal business opportunities with a search boxes at the top of the homepage to ensure that people can reach their destination WebPages with ease. The third factor put in mind when designing this website is availability. The website is hosted on secure and reliable servers. This ensures that chances of being offline are minimal, something that makes this website available and reliable at all times (â€Å"FedBizOpps: the shortened form of the federal business opportunities,† n. . ). Three Improvements I Predict That Could Be Applied to the FedBizOpps Website There are three improvements I predict that could be applied to the FedBizOpps website in the future. First, the website needs to be highly optimized in search engines. This will enhance easy access by people who are searching for information regarding federal procurement opportunities even if they have no idea about the FedBizOpps website. This is, in fact, a way of marketing that is cost-effective. Secondly, the website should have an application to display the most recent federal business opportunities at the top of the website. These may be designed to be â€Å"mobile† through the use of â€Å"marquee† HTML tags to ensure they catch the eye of the reader, thus ensuring that people who visit the website get information about the most recent opportunities at first sight. Thirdly, a summary of the information about the website should be included in the homepage. This will enhance visitors get a glimpse of the function of the website. For instance, when one accesses the homepage, it is hard to understand the function of the website before viewing a number of WebPages. This may discourage new visitors who do not understand what the website is all about (â€Å"FedBizOpps: the shortened form of the federal business opportunities,† n. d. ). Three Services Offered By the FedBizOpps Website through the Website Three services offered by the FedBizOpps web site through the website are: government users can post and manage, as well as, award procurement opportunities. This information posted is available for mass readership. On the website, a tab to view opportunities is placed close to the login form making. In addition, information regarding the possibility to view the opportunities without logging in is displayed near the link to motivate visitors to view opportunities. This logged in ensures that the information is easily accessible. However, this may not translate to many views of the opportunities. This may be improved through placing many â€Å"view opportunities† tabs with various classifications such as states, days, type of opportunities and so on. This is a sure way that visitors will be motivated to view only those opportunities that they interested in. In addition, the website offers a platform for vendor and citizens to search, follow-up and retrieve opportunities. Here, one does not need to be logged in to find opportunities making the information available to all. In contrast, the fact that one needs to log in to retrieve opportunities makes it hard for people who cannot register or remember passwords to access this service. Furthermore, the website services as a marketing platform for government approved business opportunities. In this regard, when a business opportunity is posted on this website, it is easy for people to trust it. However, the failure inability of the federal government to allow posting of classifieds makes this service a limited one (â€Å"FedBizOpps: the shortened form of the federal business opportunities,† n. d. ).