Helps Get Them Together

Donnelley Information Publishing found that small business and government have a similar problem: Small firms say they have trouble finding ways to do business with government, and governments say they have trouble finding small firms to do business with.

And so Donnelley, which publishes specialized telephone books among other things, decided to publish a specialized telephone book, this time for small companies that are interested in doing business with federal, state and local governments.

The Small Business Products and Services Procurement Planning Directory, which will appear this fall, allows small companies “to spell out their capabilities and send out the message that they want to do business,” said James K. Kneussl Jr., vice president of Donnelley Information Publishing of Rockville, Md.

One of Donnelley’s four regional offices is in Los Angeles, and smaller offices are in San Diego and San Francisco.

The directory will be composed of 15,000 to 20,000 firms that have already done business with the federal government or are interested but haven’t yet had a government contract, Kneussl said.

Companies that have received government contracts will be listed free while other companies will be charged between $350 and $7,500 depending on the size of the advertisement, he said.

Names of potential candidates for the directory are supplied by the Federal Procurement Data Center and Dun & Bradstreet, parent of Donnelley Information Publishing.

The directory will be distributed free primarily to contracting officers and purchasers in the federal government. Directories also will be sent to state, city, and county purchasers as well as prime contractors, which are large companies that receive government contracts and then subcontract with small- and minority-owned firms.