This was back in the early 2000's. My business partner and I were somewhat pioneers in the ELearning business. We learned we could get a lot more government business if we signed up for GSA. Many government agencies are supposed to do all their buying with GSA contract clients.
We were excited to learn that by law, the government must give 20% of their business to small business, and should actually provide them preferential treatment.
We were given access to a GSA business database. We typed in the name of ElementK, a competitor of ours. We were shocked to see they came up as "small business also." They were a $100 million dollar business a year! We then began researching other large well known businesses. Microsoft, IBM, you name it, they were all in there as "minority woman owned small business" via subsidiaries they had set up.
The existence of the GSA contract actually puts the real small business at the disadvantage as it is literally hundreds of complicated paperwork that takes weeks to fill out.
Used to order through GSA. Can confirm it's dishonest garbage.