The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting research team at George Mason University’s Costello College of Business has issued an inaugural index that analyzes the federal contracting industrial base’s current structure, GovCon trends and GovCon firms’ financial performance.
The Baroni Center said Tuesday the 2025 Government Contracting Trends and Performance Index offers an analysis of approximately 200,000 firms that provide more than $800 billion in products and services for the federal government.
“We are thrilled to share this inaugural Index to fill important gaps in understanding the private sector industrial base that provides critical support to the U.S. federal government,” said Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Baroni Center and lead researcher on the Index,
“This research can help guide ongoing initiatives designed to improve government contracting processes and execution. We look forward to engaging with industry and government for meaningful discussions to drive better contracting outcomes across government,” added McGinn, a three-time Wash100 awardee.
Government Contracting Trends & Performance Index’s Key Findings
According to Baroni Center researchers, the use of Other Transaction Authorities, or OTAs; Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR, grants; and other agile acquisition vehicles has accelerated in the last five years, but the extent to which the U.S. is benefiting from these procurement vehicles is “principally anecdotal.”
Researchers also found that incentives for innovation, integration, and adoption are key to attracting and keeping companies in the government marketplace.
Measuring Innovation Outcomes of OTA & Other Agile Acquisition Vehicles Is Critical
To address the index’s key findings and improve government contracting, Baroni Center researchers recommended that the Trump administration work with Congress to expand publicly available data regarding OTAs, SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer grants to identify and monitor the progress of prototypes to production.
According to the report, the administration should work to develop contract structures designed to incentivize small business investment in identified priority areas where innovations from small enterprises are most greatly desired.
Redefining ‘Non-Traditional Defense Contractor’ in Legislation
The analysis found that the legal definition for nontraditional companies excludes only 7.5 percent of firms in the Department of Defense market, undermining the value of the term “non-traditional” as a proxy for identifying tech companies that bring innovation to the federal government.
Baroni researchers recommended that Congress redefine “non-traditional defense contractor” in legislation by updating section 3014 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code to ensure that the term and corresponding applications are useful in identifying, measuring and incentivizing the performance of companies that develop and bring new technologies to DOD.
They also called on the Pentagon to integrate the updated statutory definition into the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement and policy directives to ensure that the new definition is consistently used to identify, incentivize and monitor companies that develop and deliver new technological capabilities for DOD programs of record.
