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Contract Awards

Bid that Bid … Still!

Government shutdown or no, contractors should still submit bids by their due date!

According to Alan Chvotkin (EVP and general counsel for the Professional Services Council), “these are among the thousand day-to-day issues that arise during an actual lapse in funding. The general guidance I provide our members is: Until told otherwise, the deadline is the deadline, even if the government offices are closed.” (Aron Boyd, Nextgov December 28, 2018)

Submitting bids electronically is relatively easy. A bigger issue arises with bids requiring physical submission: what to do? You are your own best advocate in this situation. Chvotkin suggests that it’s “best to attempt delivery and document — with photos and time stamps of the effort and confirm the attempt with an electronic message to the designated official.” (ibid)

Due diligence on the contractors part goes a long way. Keep an eye out for updates and extensions. Do not assume a bid deadline will be extended. The best rule of thumb is to make no assumption and assume the original due date is the due date!

Give us a call and we will help you work through your bid submission, at 301-913-5000.

New Year Will Bring DEOS, an $8 Billion Contract

DoD and GSA are finishing up the Defense Enterprise Office Solution (DEOS) RFQ, expected in February. Contract award for the $8 billion cloud contract is expected in April. DEOS will replace the Defense Enterprise Email Service run by DISA and used mainly by the Army.

Hassan Harris, DEOS contracting officer, said the final acquisition strategy has yet to be determined. Once it is, everything will move quickly.

Under DEOS, DoD plans to consolidate and upgrade all of its desktop and collaboration services into the commercial cloud. DISA recently partnered with GSA to move DEOS from a standalone contract to one that may come under Schedule 70. (It remains unclear whether DEOS will be a single or multiple awards.)

Margie Graves, federal deputy CIO, said OMB is encouraging agencies to develop an IT modernization roadmap for back-office, command-and-control, and mission space capabilities. She believes a demand signal and clear message is being sent to industry regarding DoD’s, GSA’s and OMB’s commitment to maximizing buying power for all of the federal government and ensures that the government and DoD receive the best market offerings at the best price. She also noted DoD’s experiences with DEOS will give civilian agencies the ability to adopt cloud email and collaboration tools more quickly.

GSA and DoD continue to ask for industry feedback and comments on the best way to approach DEOS. DoD expects a phased implementation with approximately 200,000 users initially, on an unclassified network.

Want to talk about DEOS? Give us a call at 301-913-5000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

!!!! E Pluribus Unum (Schedule) !!!!

GSA announced it will modernize federal acquisition by consolidating the agency’s 24 Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) into one single Schedule (!!!!) for products and services. This sole Schedule will have one set of terms and conditions, bringing consistency in contracting practices, across the board.

Can it be true? We’re not quite sure how they will implement this. Will there still be individual acquisition centers? Will this be kind of like the current OOCorp system, wherein MOBIS-like services remain in Washington, video products are out of Philadelphia, etc.? That’s our bet. But we also believe that this will not be a smooth transition for contracting officers, let alone contractors!

Consolidating Schedules is part of GSA’s Federal Marketplace strategy to make the government buying and selling experience easy, efficient, and modern.  GSA’s strategic goal is to establish the agency as the premier provider of efficient and effective acquisition solutions across the government.

The consolidation is supposed to make it easier for government agencies to obtain products and services because the purchasing agents won’t have to search multiple Schedules. GSA states that this means industry can bring their offerings to the federal marketplace using a solutions-based approach, which more closely aligns with the way agencies are buying.

Consolidating to one Schedule reflects this feedback obtained by GSA from stakeholders who shared their ideas to improve the Schedules experience.

GSA is taking a measured and phased approach (!!)  over two years to transform the Schedules. They promise to incorporate stakeholder feedback throughout the consolidation process.

EZGSA is here to answer all of your questions or just chat about the big announcement at 301-913-5000.

 

 

Looking Down from the Cloud

Cloud.gov offers federal agencies one-stop access to a secure platform for web application development. Since its inception three years ago, GSA has managed the back-end server infrastructure; now they want to come down off the cloud. GSA is looking for a vendor to support the platform, which in turn offers a platform support to other agencies.

A RFI has been released to gather information from industry about the best means to support the cloud.gov system.

The current cloud.gov product offers agencies three tiers of service:

  • a free “sandbox” platform to experiment with fresh ideas;
  • a “prototyping” backend platform for $1,250 a month per office or program; and
  • a full “production” platform, where apps can be pushed out to users.

The latter offering includes an authority to operate—a verified cybersecurity posture—at a low level for $1,667 a month and at the moderate level for $7,500 a month.

The RFI lists 14 specific tasks the vendor will be asked to perform, including maintaining the front- and back-end infrastructure, using agile methods to develop and deploy code, monitoring GitHub pull requests and fixing issues, and improving the site’s automated monitoring and alert system for identifying operational failures and potential security issues.

The contract will be awarded quickly with a start date of October 2019 and options to extend through October 2020.

In a twist, the RFI template for Cloud.gov itself rests in the cloud. Contracting officers posted the RFI as a Google doc survey with just nine questions for respondents. Responses are due by 4 p.m. Nov. 20.

If you need help pulling together your responses, give us a call at 301-913-5000.

 

Minimizing Minimum Order Mishaps

To improve customer experience associated with Minimum Order Quantities (MOQ), GSAAdvantage! now notifies agencies when their orders don’t meet MOQ requirements. If an item entered into a shopping cart is below the applicable MOQ, a note appears saying:

“The items from VENDOR fall below the contract Minimum Order of $____.  In order to purchase this item, you have three options:

  1. Increase the quantity of the item.
  2. Shop for additional items under CONTRACT to satisfy the contract minimum. (Contains a hyperlink to show available items from the relevant contract)
  3. Investigate if another vendor offers the item with a lower contract minimum order (Contains a hyperlink to the original product detail page). Note that MOQ is sortable (e.g. lowest to highest MOQ).”

Aside from helping agencies avoid incorrect orders, this will work in favor of contractors — no more having to decline an order that you’re not supposed to decline due to its being ordered from an executive agency.

If you have questions, we can help! Give us a call at 301-913-5000.