Contracting Concepts — Publicizing Contract Actions by JENNIFER JONES
If you had a company and wanted to do business with the government, how cool would it be if you could access a centralized web page that listed virtually all upcoming federal solicitations over $25,000 and could sort them by the type of supply or service? And what if it could even notify you of opportunities in your particular field if you subscribe and included information about contracts that have been awarded?
What would be the impact of such a web page—increased competition, increased opportunities, expansion of the industrial base? Would it improve confidence in the integrity of the pro - curement process? Well, happily, just such a web page exists. It is officially called the “governmentwide point of
entry” (GPE), and it is in the System for Award Management (@Sam.gov). Let’s focus on what Federal Acqui - sition Regulation (FAR) part 5 calls “Publicizing Contract Actions.” This concept is inextricably linked to the concept of full and open competition as dis- cussed in our 11th article . Diverse types of information could be published on
the GPE, but we will focus on three: Presolicitation notices (Federal Acquisi - tion Regulation [FAR] subpart 5.1), Solicitation notices (FAR subpart 5.2), and Contract awards (FAR subpart 5.3). All three of these subparts combine to maximize transparency and oppor - tunities. In fact, FAR 5.002 states that we must publicize contract actions
20 DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE | MAY – JUNE 2026
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