Written by: iiGrowth

Gustav Plato, iiGrowth CEO, is the Business Program Chair for the 2009 Supply Chain Venture Forum. This year’s conference, held in Washington DC Metropolitan Area promises to be a very exciting and will have a great mix of emerging and established businesses as well as government ministries and government owned corporations.

What is the Forum?
The 2009 US Baltic Foundation’s Supply Chain Venture Forum is a must-attend event for innovative companies looking for new business opportunities in logistics, supply chain, and emerging technologies. iiGrowth LLC and the Latvian Chamber of Commerce are leading an international organizing committee from the United States, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Featured Speaker
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, Republic of Estonia
Why Attend?

The benefits for attending the forum include:

* Increase sales in the Baltic and Nordic region
* How to reach clients in Europe, Russia, and Far East
* How to enter the US market
* Build reliable global and local supply chains
* Access the latest technologies to lower operating costs and make you more competitive
* How to finance your “Big Idea

Written by: Gustav Plato

The efforts to lead an international team in developing the Supply Chain Ventures Forum to be held in Washington DC from May 13-17, 2009 are filled with adventure and excitement.  More importantly the lessons learned to date, and the many more to come, have afforded us the knowledge base critical for developing international conferences and helping companies with market entry at a much lower cost threshold than they could get anywhere else.

The US Baltic Foundation asked iiGrowth to lead the development of the business program for 2009.  We are very excited in how things are shaping up.

• Leadership Team: We have had a great team with help from the Department of Commerce and the three Baltic Countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  We have had active participation of Ministers and Ambassadors.
• Customer Participation: We have been signing up some really great companies like Raytheon whose international experience in supply chain partnerships is world class.  On the other end of the spectrum we are working with small startups, such as MobileNow!, which is a provider of mobile parking solutions.  It is a very diverse group and this is what will really provide great value to this conference.
• Alliance Partners: We have also received ideas from our friends at the Swedish Embassy and the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce who have been helping the Latvian Chamber of Commerce that iiGrowth co-founded.
• Web 2.0 Technologies: In addition, the team is also leveraging web 2.0 technology to help promote the event through tools such as Facebook and Linked in, as well as signing up companies for matchmaking events.

The neat thing is that the team, the customers, the experience of our friends, and the use of technology has afforded us the insights and approach to develop a business model, where I believe we have taken the unnecessary non-value added costs of a typical international conference and matchmaking out of the picture.  That is pretty good!

In today’s economy, there is no other way to do it.

Written by: Gustav Plato

If you are an emerging company, or are still in the process of maturing your business model, you probably do not have a General Services Administration (GSA) schedule. This is understandable. As a start-up, your focus was on your business concept. However, as you mature you need to begin to consider implementing the tools that will help you be competitive. One such tool is a GSA contract schedule.

As an emerging company, you probably did not consider a schedule because you did not know what it is, or how it could help you. So let us begin with the basics, and let us answer what a GSA schedule is and why you may want to have one.

Last year, the government spent over $ 35,750,000,000 through GSA Schedules. That is a lot of zeros and a lot of buying power. Here is what you need to know; if a product or service is commercially available, there is a good chance that the GSA buys it for all government agencies.

GSA is a centralized procurement and property management agency for the Federal government and manages more than one-quarter of the government’s total procurement dollars, and oversees the management of $500 billion in federal assets, including more than 8,300 government-owned or leased buildings and 170,000 vehicles. Suffice it to say, keep track of what GSA is doing as part of understanding the Federal market and how it is managing its business.

There is a variety of GSA schedule contracts (87 are shown on their web site) including ones for information technology, small business, or transportation. GSA Schedule Contract presents an excellent opportunity for a service provider, manufacturer, dealer or distributor who bases his or her business on quality, feature-rich products/services and sound business practices. Having a GSA number is like being listed catalogue or directory that has ONLY contractors who have been certified as responsible vendors by the federal government. Most federal government departments/agencies now require that their procurement offices use authorized GSA contractors. In some cases, they are not allowed to purchase goods or services from those vendors who are not GSA Schedule holders.

Being and authorized GSA Schedule holder provides you with visibility, establishes your credentials, and certifies to the buyer that you will be a ‘responsible’ contractor. GSA Schedules are available to federal buyers across the nation, and in some cases, for certain commodity areas, state and local procurement offices can purchase goods and services using the GSA contracts as well. Therefore, if you own or direct a company, this is a proven strategy to generate new business opportunities and create jobs.

Generally, getting a GSA Schedule can be pretty straightforward. That is if you understand its rules and procedures and the pages of acquisition regulations that underlie the Contract. Next, we will look at some of the requirements and restrictions that GSA imposes on businesses to help you understand what you can do and what makes sense for your organization.

We hope that this will help allay your concerns about getting a Schedule and will encourage you to take the next step and investigate the rewarding possibilities of such a contract for your firm.

Written by: iiGrowth

2009 is about new beginnings. One of the features we are rolling out this year is an expansion of our IIGrowth blog. IIGrowth operates in collaboration with a vast network of subject matter experts. We want to bring this knowledge and insight to you with the hope that this will provide you with the Ideas needed to begin the Innovation process in your business, and set you on the path of business Growth.

This week we will kick it off with federal contracting and why we believe you need to have a contract schedule as you mature your business and business model.

In the coming days and weeks we will be adding discussions on supply chain, logistics, technology, market entry, and financial management.