Small Business: SBA's database offers easy access to sweetheart deals

Having just completed the National Small Business Week and the Small Business Procurement and Government Contracting festivities in Washington, D.C., I again was struck by the strong ties between business success, computer resources and marketing.

So, I call attention to a powerful tool available to small-business owners who want to do business in the nearly $200 billion per year federal contracting marketplace and with other government entities and large corporations.

The U.S. Small Business Administra-tion offers an Internet resource called the PRO-Net database. It's a "matchmaking" resource much like an Internet dating service for lonely hearts; only it's for business-to-government and business-to-business sweetheart deals.

It may not hook you up to Mr. or Ms. Right, but it's a quick and easy way to net opportunities for selling your products and services. Someone may be looking for just what you offer on PRO-Net.

PRO-Net began as an Internet database providing information on small businesses, businesses owned by companies certified as disadvantaged, those participating in SBA's 8(a) program and women-owned businesses.

Nearly 200,000 businesses now are listed. Businesses update their own company profiles to keep them current. Profiles are structured like executive business summaries, with specific data search fields designed to meet the needs of contracting officers and other potential users trying to find products or services.

Any small firm seeking contracts may place their data into PRO-Net. Access to the list and the listing is free of charge. The database is used extensively by contracting agents of federal and state government agencies, as well as prime and other contractors. Now it offers expanded services for the business owner, too.

The expanded PRO-Net database now allows a firm to receive direct e-mail notification from contracting officials about contracts of interest. Small businesses simply fill out electronic registration forms during sign up, or links to these forms show up automatically after a company updates its PRO-Net profile.

One link gives the small business access to the Department of Defense's Central Contractor Registration. Another places the small business in the General Services Administration's Electronic Posting System. The posting system acts like an electronic post office and relays contracting notices from 20 federal agencies, with more federal agencies using the system every year.

Users will now find a system with a "friendlier" search function. Previously, a user would have to enter an exact phrase to have the system identify a small business with the requested characteristics. Now, the system will generate a list based not only on the exact phrase, but its close derivatives. Businesses profiled on PRO-Net can be searched by SIC codes, key words, location, quality certifications, business type, ownership, race and gender, Electronic Data Interchange capability, etc.

But that is not all PRO-Net offers.

PRO-Net operates as a subcontracting and partnership search mechanism, a marketing tool and a "link" to important information.

PRO-Net has a special section dedicated to subcontracting opportunities called SUB-Net. Small businesses can use it to look for other companies to "partner" for the larger, more complex contracts. Large companies can look for specialty subcontractors.

Companies with home pages can link their Web sites to their profile, creating a powerful and controlled "marketing spin."

PRO-Net serves as an electronic gateway to other resources, like Commerce Business Daily, federal agency home pages and other procurement sources.

PRO-Net can be accessed from the home page SBA web site, www.sba.gov, or, go directly to www.PRO-Net.sba.gov.

(Sam Jones is the regional administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration Region VII.)