Finding Prime Contractors

What is a Prime? Why are they important?

You may often hear the terms “Prime Vendor”, “Top Prime” or “Prime Contractor” in relation to procurement and acquisitions with the government, but what does that mean? Simply put, a “Prime” is the main company chosen to perform the work or provide the product/service required in a government contract. A subcontractor is a company that works with/under a prime contractor to perform the work offered in a government solicitation.

Generally, a prime contractor is a larger business that has a relationship with the government. Common names like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI, IBM, and Leidos are examples of large prime contractors. These are companies that have a long-standing procurement relationship with the government and are at times given preferential treatment with contracts.

Prime Contractors are important because many of their contracts have requirements to set aside portions of their work to give to small businesses, either because the large company can’t provide the service or because they are mandated to set aside a certain percentage for subcontractors. Many of these large prime contractors have registration portals where you can go and register your business as a potential subcontractor on their large government contracts. This is a way for you to introduce your business and begin to market your services/products to these large prime contractors.

Our marketing packages include Select GCR registering your company with top primes, and we recommend that continue to register your business with as many as you can! Many small businesses struggle with getting started in government contracting and often being a subcontractor is a great way to get started and begin to build a past performance portfolio that could help get you noticed for priming your own contracts!

Where can I find primes?

USASpending.gov

This powerful website can also find your local primes that are currently getting work from the government.

Navigate to USAspending.gov and click on “Start Searching Awards”

The menu on the left-hand side is a powerful tool you can use to narrow down the search results.

Let’s use a keyword of “computer”, the year 2022, and the state of Colorado as our example. Once you’ve set what parameters you would like, hit submit search. The output is a list of awarded contracts with the parameters you requested with names and amounts.

After seeing the results Click on “Download” on the top right, then “Award”, then “Everything” to download the file.

You will receive multiple files of the instate and out of state contractors.

Open “Contracts_PrimeAwardSummaries” to view the Recipient Name & Recipient UEI. Additional valuable information that will be viewed and discussed at a later part of our training is the Award ID & Solicitation Identifier.

Utilizing Select GCR Pro – you can do a search for the contractor and pull up all of their contact information. Searching for Accenture Federal Services brings up contact information:

How do I register once I’ve found a good prime?

Let’s say we want to register our business with Accenture. The next step is figuring out where their registration portal is. For this, we need to do a simple google search of (name of company) + supplier registration.

As you can see, the portal comes right up, most often it will be the top result but lookout for terms like “supplier portal” and “register” or “vendor management” and you will be in the right place. If it doesn’t, you might need to look on the prime’s website for a “Working with us” or “Partnership” section to find the area to register as a subcontractor. It’s also possible that the prime does not offer a registration portal or website and you need to contact the POC of the prime to inquire about registering your business. For instance, in the Accenture website, once we click the link at the top we have to scroll down and find this section.

Make sure to read the site and see what documents are needed to register. Often you will need your capabilities statement and the information found on that document. UEI, EIN, Address, Point of Contact information, NAICS, NIGP/commodity codes, a signed w9, number of employees, revenue estimates and ACH information are common requirements for these types of registrations. Here are the requirements for Accenture, for example.

Once you have gone through the steps and registered, you will usually be provided with the ability to create a username and password and have a portal where you can build a profile and check on opportunities with that top prime.
Then call and introduce your business. Set up a meeting to discuss what you can bring to the prime and how you can help them achieve their contracting goals.