CDW-Government Looks To Recruit VARs Owned By Veterans

CDW-G, the government and education subsidiary of Vernon Hills, Ill.-based CDW, currently has 17 federal solution providers in its consortium but needs more veteran-owned partners, said Jim Shanks, CDW-G president.

The Small Business Act, which establishes federal goals for contracting with small businesses, sets aside 3 percent of prime contract dollars for companies owned by veterans who were disabled in the course of their military service, Shanks said. The federal government has an initiative under which 23 percent of all its spending will go through small, women-owned or minority-owned businesses as well as companies located in economic hub zones.

"One of the things we want is to have representation in each of those categories," Shanks said.

CDW-G provides products and logistical support to consortium partners that sell to government and education accounts.

Meanwhile, Access Distribution plans to introduce two demand-generation tools this week to help government solution providers.

The Westminster, Colo.-based distributor's Contract Watch uses information from Onvia to data-mine government RFPs and other current procurement opportunities, said Mike AtLee, director of the Government Systems Group at Access Distribution.

In addition, the distributor's Government Contact Directory Services Program lists more than 300,000 government contacts, including addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, which makes it easy to find the right decision-maker, AtLee said.