9 min read
Recompetes, contract vehicles, and growing your federal business
Most federal work is not new — it is existing contracts coming up for recompete. How incumbency works, what IDIQs, GWACs, and GSA Schedules are, and when a growing contractor should invest in a contract vehicle.
The recompete: where most contracts come from
Government needs rarely disappear when a contract ends — the agency still needs the supplies delivered or the service performed, so it competes the requirement again. These recompetes are a huge share of all federal spending, and they are the most predictable opportunities in the market: you can see today which contracts expire next year, who holds them, and roughly what they are worth.
For a new contractor, recompetes are attractive precisely because the requirement is proven and documented. The incumbent's contract, modifications, and spending history are largely public (USAspending.gov and FPDS), so you can study exactly what the government has been buying before the solicitation even drops.
Incumbency: advantage, not entitlement
Incumbents win recompetes more often than not — they know the customer, the requirement, and the price history, and their past performance on the very contract being recompeted is maximally relevant. If you hold a contract, the recompete campaign starts on day one of performance: strong CPARS ratings, a satisfied customer, and documented improvements are your real proposal.
But incumbents lose constantly, too — through complacency (recycling the old proposal against fresh competitors), price creep, staff turnover, or a customer relationship that quietly soured. As a challenger, look for those signals: an incumbent with weak ratings, an agency issuing a sources sought notice (often a sign it is testing the market), or a requirement newly set aside for a category the incumbent does not hold.
Contract vehicles in plain English
Beyond one-off contracts, agencies pre-position spending through contract vehicles — umbrella agreements that make later ordering fast. An IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) contract sets terms and ceiling pricing up front; the agency then issues task or delivery orders against it as needs arise. Many IDIQs are multiple-award: several companies win seats, then compete against only each other for each order.
A GWAC (government-wide acquisition contract) is a large multiple-award IDIQ, typically for IT, that any agency can order through. BPAs (blanket purchase agreements) are a lighter-weight cousin, often established under GSA Schedules for recurring buys. The pattern to internalize: increasingly, the real competition happens at the vehicle on-ramp — if you are not on the vehicle, you cannot even see the orders flowing through it.
GSA Schedules
The GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) is the government's largest commercial buying program: you negotiate a long-term agreement with GSA covering your products or services at pre-negotiated ceiling prices, and any federal agency (plus some state and local buyers) can then order from you quickly, often through the GSA Advantage online catalog or streamlined RFQs on GSA eBuy.
Getting on Schedule is a real project — you must typically demonstrate corporate experience and financial responsibility, disclose commercial pricing practices, and accept ongoing compliance obligations like sales reporting. And a Schedule is a hunting license, not revenue: plenty of Schedule holders sell nothing through it because they never market it. It pays off when your customers actually prefer buying that way.
When to invest in a vehicle
The honest answer for most brand-new contractors: not yet. Vehicles reward companies that already have federal demand — the evaluation for a vehicle seat leans on past performance and proven sales, and the compliance overhead is real. Win open-market work first.
Invest when the signals appear: target customers repeatedly say 'we buy through the Schedule' or 'that requirement goes through our IDIQ'; you are losing deals for lack of a vehicle rather than lack of capability; or a major on-ramp in your market is opening (GWAC and large IDIQ on-ramps happen on multi-year cycles, and missing one can mean a long wait). At that point a vehicle stops being overhead and becomes infrastructure.
A realistic growth arc
A common progression for successful small contractors: win small open-market and set-aside orders to build CPARS history; concentrate on two or three agencies and become genuinely known to their small business offices; defend and expand initial contracts through options and recompetes; add certifications and teaming relationships that widen eligibility; then add a Schedule or IDIQ seat when demand justifies it.
Growth also brings the size-standard question: winning too much too fast in one NAICS code can eventually make you other-than-small there, changing which competitions you can enter. Firms that plan for graduation — diversifying codes, building full-and-open competitiveness, cultivating vehicle positions — treat it as a milestone. Firms that ignore it fall off a cliff. Watch your trailing averages and plan two years ahead.
Make the pipeline systematic
Mature contractors run their pipeline like a manufacturing process: every expiring contract in their market is identified 12 to 24 months out, qualified with a bid/no-bid decision, and worked through capture (customer conversations, teaming, solution shaping) long before the RFP drops. By the time a solicitation publishes, the winner has usually been preparing for months.
You do not need enterprise software habits on day one, but you do need the discipline: a tracked list of targets with dates, owners, and honest win probabilities. Govetract's recompete radar and pursuit pipeline exist to make that discipline the default rather than a heroic effort.
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