Survey: State of Contracting in Public & Private Sectors

Overview

Reimagine Main Street, in partnership with 14 other national business organizations, surveyed businesses about their experiences with corporate and government contracting. The results come out against a backdrop of significant Federal investments and a wave of litigation against diverse businesses, business diversity and efforts to increase contracting with diverse-owned and small businesses.

Contracting with the federal government and large corporations presents significant opportunities for diverse-owned and small businesses. The federal government is the largest consumer of goods and services in the world, spending more than $690 billion on contracts in FY 2022. Corporations spend 58% of their revenue on corporate contracts with suppliers. 

At the same time, public and private sector investments in infrastructure, clean tech, and the reshoring of advanced manufacturing as a result of the Investing in America agenda are creating industries of the future and new on-shore supply chains. Growth, competitiveness, and resilience of the U.S. economy depend on integrating diverse-owned businesses into these new and emerging supply chains. 

Top Findings

Survey findings indicate a clear opportunity to increase contracting with diverse and small businesses in the public and private sectors:

• Diverse-owned and small businesses have the capacity for contracting: one in three (33%) respondents generates at least $1M in annual revenue and almost half (48%) of the respondents already generate at least 50% of their revenue from contracting.
  
  
• Nearly a third (29%) of the diverse and small businesses surveyed compete in “Investing in America” industries: they include engineering and construction, energy and environment, manufacturing, industrial technology, and telecommunications and they have capacity for contracts.
  
  
• Small and diverse businesses eager to learn more about opportunities from the Investing in America agenda: Respondents see promise in the Bipartisan Instructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the CHIPS and Science Act.
  
  
• Diverse businesses say contracting drives their growth strategies: Nearly half (46%) of respondents with $1M+ revenue say that corporate contracting is critical to their growth strategy and one in three respondents says the same about government contracting.
  
  
• Intentional engagement and unbundling of contracts are imperative to level the playing field for competition so that diverse-owned businesses can contribute to building robust and resilient supply chains of the future, for diverse-owned businesses to increase their contributions.