In an effort to increase transparency and reduce reliance on the Dun and Bradstreet numbering system, the GSA has released an RFP looking for an alternative. Much to Dun and Bradstreet’s chagrin, I’d imagine, their contract with the GSA ends this year and there is going to be some competition.

As you likely already know, the DUNS (Data Universal Numbering System) is the system agencies use to identify contractors, non-profits, grant-recipients and other firms and has been in use since the 60s. If you want to do business with the government, you have to have a DUNS.

If you feel your firm is up to the task to create a competitive numbering system, questions should be submitted to entityvalidation@gsa.gov by September 19, 2018. GSA has provided documents including a Model Subcontracting Plan Template to provide a skeleton to write your proposal. For vendors using subcontractors with set-asides, these subcontracted dollars need to be tallied and applied to the corresponding set-asides. As you know, GSA has goals for VOSB, SDVOSB, HubZone, SDB, ANC, WOSB, etc. so preferential treatment will likely be given to contractors with more dollars being provided to set-asides. If you are a sub-contractor with a set-aside, you should also keep this in mind when looking to team.

As far as changes for those of us not bidding on this RFP, one would assume that the nomenclature “DUNS” will be changing, as well as perhaps the numbers themselves. Whether vendors will need to re-enter all of their existing information remains to be seen.