OCI hosted it’s second in a series of seminars targeted for private sector professionals developing solutions and proposals to the Federal government. The event took place at the Tower Club, Tysons Corner, Virginia on Wednesday, May 13, 2015 Former government executives Pat Schambach and Jim Williams (Schambach & Williams Consulting LLC) along [...]
The busy season is nearly on top of us. Twenty-two years of record keeping demonstrates that May is nearly always the fastest month in the Federal proposal preparation year. The table below shows what percentage of the year’s business we do each month, based on a recent 5-year average. Our business pattern [...]
As with many large IDIQ’s, the timing for DHITS I is moving to the right. From the May 2015 RFP Release date we reported previously, the date is now estimated at October 2015, with awards in summer of 2016. A second-draft RFP is expected in July, one year after the first draft. A third industry day is scheduled for July 16, 2015, to be followed by a final strategy development step prior to the procurement execution phase. DHITS will be in focus for a host of federal contractors, large and small, and the competition will be intense. Small business will be substantially represented, up to about 40%.
Here are nine things you can do to win more proposals this year: 1. Start with a well-defined solution.2. Invest enough in production so your proposal will look like a winner.3. Use price to win (PTW) analysis – you can’t do without this any longer?4. Stock your refrigerator with good things for [...]
OCI is partnering with FedSavvy Strategies to help HCaTS bidders. FedSavvy Strategies’ principal – Brian Lindholm – has a deep background in the HCaTS program, while OCI has a large bench of consultants qualified to help prepare a winning HCaTS proposal.
Overview to Winning HCATS
The Human Capital and Training Services (HCaTS) opportunity represents an exciting development for any business delivering human capital, training and development, and organizational process improvement. HCaTS is – for all intents and purposes – a follow-on contract to the legacy Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Training and Management Assistance (TMA) contract.
Based on some very conservative estimates, we believe this contract could reach around $242 million per year in contract spending. We think this figure is realistic based on the fact that HCaTS is mostly a replacement for the OPM TMA contract and its scope is expanding. Consider HCaTS probable value against an annual addressable market value of nearly $2 billion per year for Training and Human Capital Solutions.
Your decision to pursue HCaTS should take into consideration what alternative contracts your existing and targeted customers currently utilize. Will HCaTS be used in your customers’ acquisition strategy or will it merely be seen as yet another multiple award IDIQ contract?
The US Army released the $37.4 billion Responsive Strategic Sourcing for Services (RS3) IDIQ contract March 25, 2015. It is due April 24, and awards are planned for late July, 2015.
The Army released the Draft RFP of the solicitation on February 24, 2015, and released answers to 90 industry questions related to the Draft RFP on March 24, 2015.
Given the high dollar value and the different award categories, the Army will likely receive well over 100, maybe over 200 proposals. Approximately 30 large businesses and 20 small businesses will receive awards, according to the latest information issued by the US Army Contracting Command. The RS3 procurement (draft solicitation number W15P7T15R0008) is intended to replace a number of existing Army multiple award IDIQ contracts, including S3, R2-3G, WEBS, TIES, and TAOSS. While incumbents on these contracts with a strong record of successful past performance are well positioned for award on RS3, the draft PWS has been prepared with intentionally broad language and covers a wide range of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) tasks, which opens the door to up and coming competitors. PWS functional areas include services related to Engineering; Research, Development, Test and Evaluation; Logistics; Acquisition and Strategic Planning; and Education and Training.
Suggestions for Preparing a Winning RS3 Proposal
Offerors that intend to submit a winning proposal should take the following actions:
1. Review the RFP documents and Industry Day briefing slide deck to understand the Section C SOW Requirements, Section L Instructions, and Section M evaluation criteria. In particular, note the insight provided by the Government from the 90 questions and answers that were published on March 24, 2015 on fbo.gov, and fine tune your company’s capture strategy, including teaming arrangements and proposal team resources.
Loading Video Player... In January, we held our first breakfast series to discuss pressing issues in the industry like rapid task order response. In June, we will be offering a follow up one day course on Effectively Managing Task Order Responses. This course offers a simple and reliable process for [...]
The GSA has developed a far-reaching strategy to improve the way government acquires communications and information technology infrastructure services. This initiative, known as Network Services 2020 (NS2020), envisions a sourcing program that blends telecommunications technologies and IT infrastructure, and that provides access to the latest industry capabilities. The program will span everything from advisory services, to satellite, with enough flexibility to eventually include emerging technology like mobile-to-mobile solutions.As always, accessibility to services and the lowest overall cost to the Government are paramount in the acquisition strategy. It is GSA’s goal to drastically expand the number of vendors included in the contract in addition to the incumbent contractors. The Northeast Infrastructure Solutions (NIS) procurement will replace current local services agreements in place in four of the GSA regions, the National Capital Region (NCR) and Regions 1, 2 and 3.
Purpose of the NIS Contract
The NS2020 program will establish three regional procurements that provide access and connectivity when current LSAs expire between 2015 and 2017. Service areas will include the Northeast Infrastructure Solutions (NIS), Central Infrastructure Solutions (CIS) and Western Infrastructure Solutions (WIS).
The NIS strategy is meant to serve as the transition service between Regional Local Service Agreements (LSA) and the Washington Integrated Telecommunications Service (WITS) 3 contract that will expire over the next three years, and the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program that is set to replace Network in 2017.
The program includes several important goals: (1) Reduce acquisition costs; (2) Diversify purchasing capabilities; (3) Improve agility and flexibility; (4) Establish an Everything over IP (EIOP) environment, and; (5) Facilitate ease of transition to the EIS program. The GSA hopes to accomplish these goals by giving agencies a larger and more diversified pool of vendors from which to choose, and offering greater flexibility in how they manage their contracts.
The end result will empower agency customers, as well as the vendor community to propose solutions that will not require contract modifications to meet the broad and ever-changing agency needs.
I wrote an article that appeared in the OCI newsletter on last October 6th, regarding the Defense Health Information Technology Services Generation I (DHITS Generation I). That article can be read at the following URL: http://www.ociwins.com/Industry-News/name-change-for-defense-systems-integration-design-development-operation-and-maintenance-support-dsiddoms-iv-contract.html.
In the previous article we focused on providing an overview and background to the D/SIDDOMS / DHITS program. This program supports the Defense Health Agency’s TRICARE program. TRICARE provides the delivery of health care services to military members worldwide.
DHITS I Current Status
The purpose of this current article is to provide insight into how prime and subcontractor bidders can increase their chances of winning a DHITS I contract. On February 12, 2015 the contracting office released a list of those contractors registered for the Industry Day, which was scheduled for February 17th but was cancelled due to inclement weather and will be rescheduled. There are some 930 names registered and unfortunately for readers, if you are not already on the list, registration was closed and may remain that way when the meeting is rescheduled.
However, for anyone, registered or not, the listing provides names and companies to contact for possible subcontract position or if you plan to prime the deal, subcontractors that may have skills that your company needs to fill out the ten technology areas required by the solicitation. The Draft RFP has been available since July of 2014 and can be used by for forward-thinking federal contractors that want to get a two-month head start on developing their proposals. The final RFP is expected to be released on or about October 14, 2015 with the award currently scheduled for June 2016.
Written by: Thomas Hodges Last August I wrote an article highlighting the forthcoming Department of Energy ESPC IDIQ program: Department of Energy- Energy Saving Performance Contract (ESPC) IDIQ. In that article, I explained the unusual nature of this IDIQ, including the fact that Congressional appropriated funds are not sourced for these projects, but [...]
