White Paper. Fast Track. Awards & ROI

Request for Fast-Track Approval for Collecting Feedback
on Awards and ROI After 2013 NVSBC: White Paper

Situation

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) requests approval for the Fast-Track process (or generic clearance) for collecting service delivery feedback under the Paper Reduction Act (PRA). OSDBU intends to collect information from the 2013 National Veterans Small Business Conference (NVSBC) attendees regarding the outcome they experienced after it. The NVSBC is the VA Secretary Signature event, which main goal is to provide access to Small Business Owners to federal contracting opportunities. OSDBU aims to measure the return on investment (ROI) through the incidence of federal contracts awarded as the result of attending to the 2013 NVSBC, and the benefits received by connecting with procurement decision makers during the event.

The collected information will be used as an internal measure of ROI, as well as to develop marketing and communications materials targeted to potential attendees, to include procurement decision makers from federal agencies. The qualitative nature of the results may be shared with small business owners to help them evaluate whether the expected ROI is suitable for their business (FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Section IX, page 5).

.

This year’s event, named as 2014 National Veterans Small Business Engagement (NVSBE), was approved on June 10, 2014 and will take place on December 9^th through the 11^th. This represents a short period of time to go through the regular PRA process and get results to develop marketing materials.

PRA Information Supporting the Fast-Track Process

The Fast Track Process is designed for information collections that focus on the awareness, understanding, attitudes, preferences, or experiences of customers or other stakeholders relating to existing or future services, products, or communication materials (FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Point 2, page 1). The Awards and ROI After 2013 NVSBC collection focuses on experiences that customers have had at the 2013 NVSBC, which is a service received from OSDBU.

As this information collection intends to learn about the customer level of satisfaction with the ROI received from the 2013 NVSBC, it should qualify for generic clearance (FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Section III, page 3). The estimate of the hour burden of the collection (41 hours) and the fact that it does not raise substantive or policy issues supports its suitability for a fast-track process as well. (FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Section XI, page 4).

If results need to be shared with potential attendees, it will be indicated that these are not generalizable to the population of study, as established on the FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Section IX, page 5.

Summary

As OSDBU deals with a limited time frame to design, promote and execute the 2014 NVSBE, it is requested that the Awards and ROI After 2013 NVSBC survey goes through a fast-track approval process in order to collect the data the soonest. As explained, this is a customer satisfaction, low-burden collection which results would be fundamental for the development of the 2014 NVSBE marketing material, and for small business owners, who need to make a determination regarding their participation on this event according to the ROI the could expect from it.