FBI Starts Over On Enterprise IT Recompete With New Draft Solicitation
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By
Aaron Boyd
Contracting officials made some small but significant changes to the latest draft solicitation for ITECS.
The FBI released a revised draft solicitation for its enterprise IT services contract once valued at $5 billion. The new solicitation does not include a projected dollar figure for the life of the contract but does have some changes from previous drafts, including a new technical track and update on the number of expected awards.
The Information Technology Enterprise Contract Services, or ITECS, contract—the renamed recompete for the Information Technology Supplies and Support Services, or ITSSS—was posted to eBuy last week.
The recompete has been over a year in the making. Initially, the agency considered breaking ITSSS into separate contracts. Contracting officials determined a single IT contract would suffice and later decided to award a blanket purchase agreement using pre-vetted vendors on the General Services Administration’s IT Schedule 70 rather than hold a full and open competition. After all those changes and a historic government shutdown to start the year, contracting officials decided to pull the existing solicitation and restart with a new draft request for quotes.
The previous changes remain in the latest draft RFQ, which Nextgov obtained through analysts at The Pulse of GovCon. However, the new solicitation includes an additional technical track and redistributes the planned awards across large and small business tracks, rather than multiple awards for each function area.
One of the incremental updates added last year included shifting the technical area tracks to align with Technology Business Management principles—a taxonomy that matches IT spending to specific mission outcomes to better manage investments and a mandate for all federal agencies under the President’s Management Agenda.
The new draft RFQ includes the original six technical areas—end-user services, business applications services, delivery services, platform services, infrastructure services and emerging services—and adds shared services as a seventh.
The 68-page draft solicitation includes some examples of the kinds of products and services FBI offices will be looking to buy from each function area.
Officials have also made tweaks on the number of potential awards. Originally, the agency planned to award 15 to 22 spots on each of the six tracks, for a total of between 90 and 132 awards. Officials also expected to include 10 to 15 large businesses and five to seven small businesses on each track.
That framework has been abandoned entirely in the new RFQ. Instead of offering multiple slots per function area, the FBI is now considering two tracks based on business size. Officials intend to award 20 spots on the large business track and make 10 awards on the small business track.
Those awards will be made from the pool of vendors that already have spots on GSA’s IT Schedule 70. Specifically, contracting officials are looking at seven special item numbers, or SINs, on Schedule 70:
- Cloud and Cloud-Related IT Professional Services (132-40)
- Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Tools (132-44)
- Information Technology Professional Services (132-51)
- Wireless Mobility Solutions (132-53)
- Identity and Access Management Professional Services (132-60F)
- Public Key Infrastructure Shared Services Providers Program (132-61)
- Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 Products and Services Components (132-62)
Individual task orders will have their own periods of performance, but the master BPA will have a one-year base period with four one-year options.
If the current schedule holds, bids will be due by noon July 1. Awards are expected in the first quarter of fiscal 2020.
Questions on the draft RFQ are due by noon May 13. FBI officials will be holding vendor days June 4 and 5 in Jacksonville, Florida.