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GSA mulls recompete of SAM.gov contract

The General Services Administration granted IBM a six-month $16 million extension on its contract to operate and modernize the SAM.gov system as the agency considers whether to put the business up for bidding.

The extension was announced in a contracting document dated Aug. 13 that cited an urgent need to keep IBM on the job while the agency explores the possibility of a competitive offering.

IBM has held the System for Award Management Architecture and Operations Contract Services contract for eight years, and it is leading the effort to modernize the system of systems that government agencies and vendors use to manage hundreds of billions in government contracts annually.

IBM’s contract expired Aug. 14. GSA had intended to award IBM another long-term deal, but according to contracting documents, that move was overturned because of a ruling that more market research needs to be conducted to support a decision to justify a sole source award.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2018/08/23/gsa-sam-recompete.aspx

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Senate attempt to reduce protests misses the point

When it comes to federal procurement, the frequency and expectation of protests has had a palpable, costly, and sometimes deleterious effect on the process and those competing in it.

Most companies now add an extra six to 12 months to their revenue projections in order to account for possible protests.

There is good reason to believe (including surveys) that “low price/technically acceptable” (LPTA) procurement strategies are, with some frequency, driven by a desire to avoid protests, since protesting such procurements is near impossible.

And, of course, there have been cases where incumbents, having lost a re-competition, submit a protest and, as a result, effectively get a contract extension while the protest is decided.

All of these represent unintended and undesirable impacts of the protest process. As a result, many have believed for some time that significant remedial action is needed. This includes the Senate Armed Services Committee, which, for the second year in a row, has included provisions in the defense authorization bill that would require losing protestors to reimburse the government for the costs of a protest when none of the plaintiff’s allegations are sustained.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2017/07/25/insights-soloway-bid-protests.aspx

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Contract protests up, contract awards down — what to do?

Recent data indicates that protests have increased overall by approximately 17 percent since 2012, exceeded only by the decrease in government contract spending over that same time.

The resulting increase in pre-award costs derived from protests for all parties concerned requires a step back to analyze what is driving this not-so-encouraging trend, and what, if anything, should be done about it.

Most involved in government contracting today understand the recent trends of a declining overall market. Topping out at almost $600 billion a few years ago, the current federal budget has been squeezed by such things as the Budget Control Act of 2011, automatic budget sequestration, mandatory cuts, spending caps, and overall drawdown of U.S. military operations worldwide. Contractors are now competing for ever fewer dollars, as the government’s “mandatory” spending — in areas such as healthcare and retirement — continues to shrink the “discretionary” dollars available for everything else. This has resulted in many contractors leaving the federal market, either through mergers or simply going out of business, or diversifying into other business lines.

Keep reading this commentary at: http://www.federaltimes.com/opinions/2017/07/25/contract-protests-up-contract-awards-down-what-to-do-commentary/

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DHS to recompete online immigration contract

The Homeland Security Department will award contracts to multiple companies to fix a long-suffering program aimed at computerizing immigration paperwork, after a lackluster job by the current vendor, according to federal officials and internal memos.

The original five-year, $536,000 plan for “Transformation” has grown into a potentially two-decade effort that, officials told Nextgov, could cost more than $3 billion if not stopped. So far, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a DHS agency, has created one online form with the $792.6 million it has spent since contracting with system developer IBM in 2008. It is unclear how much of that sum went directly to IBM.

Keep reading this article at http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2012/12/dhs-recompete-online-immigration-program-crisis/60144/?oref=homeland_security_nl.

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More scrutiny for one company solicitation responses at DoD

Single offeror responses to Defense Department solicitations will come under more scrutiny following the Nov. 24 release of a memo from Shay Assad, director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy.

Effective immediately, Assad wrote (.pdf), if a contracting officer receives only one offeror response to a solicitation open for less than 30 days, then the officer must re-advertise the solicitation for an additional 30 days (unless a the head of the contracting shop grants a waiver).

If still just the one offeror responds–or if the original response period was for 30 days to begin with–then contracting officers are no longer allowed to make a fair and reasonable pricing finding based on a reasonable expectation that single offeror’ s price was made in the genuine belief of competition. Assad’s memo also prevents contracting officers from making a fair and reasonable pricing finding based on a comparison of the single offeror’s price to federal prices recently paid for similar items.

In technical terms, that means that Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 15.403-1(c)(1)(ii) or (iii) are inoperative for the Defense Department.

Instead, contracting officers must open negotiations with the single offeror on the basis of cost or pricing data, (whether certified or not), regardless of contract type. Contractors generally dislike allowing contracting officers to comb through their cost or pricing data, since the outcome generally means that contracting officers decide for themselves what the company’s profit rate should be.

Assad’s memo is a follow up to an earlier memo from Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, that first introduced the requirement for price negotiations in the case of a single offeror. Carter introduced the memo in the context of a Defense Department efficiency drive whose goal it is to find $100 billion of cost savings in overhead over the next five years.

For more:
– download the Nov. 24, 2010 memo on “Improving Competition in Defense Procurements”

— by David Perera – December 1, 2010 — Fierce Government IT 

Read more: More scrutiny for one company solicitation responses at DoD – FierceGovernmentIT http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/more-scrutiny-one-company-solicitation-responses-dod/2010-12-01#ixzz1GaTelTdR
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Read more: More scrutiny for one company solicitation responses at DoD – FierceGovernmentIT: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/more-scrutiny-one-company-solicitation-responses-dod/2010-12-01#ixzz1GaSnEIvU
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