Why Do Corporate Giants Land Federal Contracts Meant for Small Businesses?
Few would disagree that federal contracts set aside for small businesses should go to small businesses — not corporate behemoths. And yet it seems to happen again and again. Take one recent example: in late December, an IT company named QSS, a subsidiary of Dell Inc., landed a small-business contract for nearly $21 million from the U.S. Coast Guard. What’s more, QSS — which in 2006 was purchased by Ross Perot’s “Perot Systems” before Perot was gobbled up by Dell last year — is listed in a federal database as a “self-certified small disadvantaged business.” How can this be? After all, Dell employs some 76,000 people, and the government’s definition of a small business is one that, in this particular industry, employs no more than 1,000. The answer depends on whom you ask. The most vocal small business activists insist that the government is acting negligently, even nefariously. Regulators in the federal Small Business Administration counter that the issue is mostly the byproduct of codi
