Improving the Air Force Small-Business Performance Expectations Methodology

The Air Force is trying to increase small-business use and identify industries that have the most potential for increasing small-business utilization. This report examines the Air Force Small-Business Performance Expectations Methodology with the goal of improving it to identify small-business opportunities. The report recommends that efforts to increase small-business spending should take into account differences between the Air Force's and other services' buying requirements as well as the importance of budget categories, using industry/Product or Service code/budget-category combinations to identify small businesses. Changing certain market definitions to identify areas with more or less small-business saturation would improve the methodology. Additionally, industry small-business size standards should be considered. A larger amount of data, including the last two to three years of data, would help monitor and refine accuracy.