Encore II Picks Up Speed

Prime contactors eagerly prepare for IT services contract vehicle,
which was awarded its first task orders.

by Harrison Donnelly, MIT Editor
 

The Encore II information technology services contract program, set up by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to be its net-centric vehicle of choice, is already well under way, with eight task orders awarded as of early September.

The awards are just the first of what DISA officials expect will be a steady flow of business under a program with a $12.2 billion ceiling over 10 years.

The companies selected are among the 14 large companies and 12 smaller firms picked by DISA this spring to participate in the program, all of which will be backed by hundreds of subcontractors. The companies are eligible to bid on a wide range of IT services needed by customers in the Department of Defense and throughout the federal government. (See MIT, June 2008, page 9.)

The program, which had been delayed in 2007 by a successful contract challenge, got off to a somewhat slow start when officially launched in June 2008, DISA officials acknowledge. But since then it has begun picking up speed, with some 50 requirements packages in various stages of the acquisition process, most of which are expected to be awarded by the end of September. That should only grow as the program becomes more familiar, according to Debra Santoro, chief of the Information Technology Contracting Division within DISA’s Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO).

“The more task order requirements we work, the more comfortable we at DISA, our customers and our Enore II industry partners are becoming with the Encore II processes and procedures,” Santoro said. “On the government side we are becoming smarter on structuring the requests for proposals, including the statements of objectives and performance work statements to provide a quality product that will facilitate our Encore II industry partners in preparation of their performance-based proposals.”

Encore II is built on and largely follows the outline of the initial version of Encore, which runs until September 2009, although no new task orders are being issued under it. The new program will be different, however, in that more emphasis is being placed on the concept of performance-based services. To that end, application procedures will focus more on the customer’s objectives and less on prescriptive direction by the government on how to achieve those objectives.

Request for proposal (RFP) procedures will also change, with a draft RFP stage added for many requirements. “This has added approximately 10 days to our processing time, but allows for an exchange of ideas prior to release of the final RFP leading to a much greater understanding of the government’s requirement prior to release of the final RFP,” Santoro said. “We believe the feedback received by the government in response to the draft RFP will assist in defining the requirement and lead to better proposal submissions by the offerors. In addition, we believe that by allowing the offerors an additional 10 days to consider the requirement, we’ll increase competition for the resulting task order.”

Even so, the program is still too new for definite trends to have emerged on such issues as the average number of bidders for each task order and the types of services acquired from among the 20 task areas. It’s also too early to tell how successful will be the 12 smaller primes, which were selected for participation under somewhat relaxed criteria but will have to compete on an even basis with other companies for specific task orders.

Santoro sees bright prospects for the smaller companies, however. “We do believe we have a very competitive field of small business prime contractors under Encore II that will ultimately play a major role in the numbers of task orders awarded.

“Many of these small businesses are coming to the program with expertise in a particular IT support niche,” she continued. “We hope that as they become comfortable with the Encore II proposal submission process, they will become more aggressive in other areas. The best way they can compete under Encore II is to be as aggressive as possible in proposing on task orders.”

COMPETITIVE FOCUS

Indeed, many of the prime contractors have been moving aggressively to participate in the program, devoting considerable organizational resources to the effort, putting together large teams of subcontractors and launching marketing initiatives. SRA International, for example, “is excited about this because offerings and services such as cyber-security, IT managed services, COTS integration, applications development and large scale systems integration are right in our sweet spot,” said Michele Engelhart, vice president, national security business development. “We’re a best-of-breed industry provider of these types of services. Encore II is a marquee DoD contract vehicle for SRA, and we expect both DISA and our other DoD customers to use it quite heavily to buy these types of advanced technology offerings.

“We’ve established an internal center of excellence for managing these types of contract vehicles,” Englehart continued. “We have very well established processes, and can turn task order proposals around very quickly. We have a cadre of technology partners that we’re engaged with not only on Encore II, but also across other contracts and engagements in the federal space. We’ve leveraged these established processes and partnerships to establish a well-oiled machine for running our Encore II contract.”

A number of companies have created program management offices (PMO) to oversee teammate coordination, contract administration, task order management, quality and security. SAIC, for example, operates an Encore II PMO that shares resources with several other multiple award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicles. Company officials say the arrangement provides for significant efficiencies and repeatable and predictable processes known throughout the Encore II PMO and team.

At Raytheon, the PMO is part of the company’s IDIQ Service Center, which was created in 2006 to focus on managing large IDIQs across the company. The centralized IDIQ Service Center was created to gain greater visibility and exposure of these IDIQs across a very large organization such as Raytheon; broaden the awareness, understanding and appropriate use of IDIQs; offer a centralized support system to customers; achieve synergy and reduce cost; and build a simple infrastructure to broadcast task order opportunities across the company.

“Our PMO does not sit within a particular Raytheon business but, rather is part of the corporate IDIQ Service Center, which allows us to reach out to the entire company with opportunities and, conversely, allows the customer to work directly with the right Raytheon organization they require,” noted Raymond Moeller, program manager for Encore II. “Our team is the one point of contact with the government, and is responsible for servicing the basic contract; providing internal outreach, education and proposal support; disseminating opportunities across the businesses, often guiding Raytheon and customers through the process, and ultimately growing the Encore II vehicle.”

In addition to its Encore II PMO, EDS also has developed and implemented a secure virtual PMO Web-based portal that provides visibility into contract and task order performance and management.

BUILDING THE TEAM

A critical issue for prime contractors involves building teams of subcontractors to handle the diverse tasks—ranging from IT policy and integrated solutions management to market research, security engineering and Web services—available through Encore II. The alliances are extensive, with small prime contractor DSA reporting a 30-company team, while SRA has 60 and Raytheon has 24 and is looking for more. EDS, which was recently acquired by HP, has identified more than 100 companies as potential teaming partners on the Encore II contract.

“TeamDSA includes a select group of large businesses that provide depth and breadth technically and geographically, as well as a significant number of small businesses in all socio-economic categories to ensure we satisfy small business participation goals,” said Fran Pierce, DSA’s president, chairman and chief executive officer. “Our selection process brings together a first class team of companies offering an extensive mix of capabilities and superior past performance experience covering all 20 task areas. Most importantly, these companies share our vision of collaborating as a team to provide effective IT solutions to the government.”

Because the teaming arrangement enables them to offer a wide range of services, most companies seem committed to reviewing every task order issued through the program, and bidding on all types of business.

According to Jose Zayas, account executive, U.S. public sector, for EDS, his company wants to help agencies “in identifying and maintaining the legacy baseline of requirements, processes, applications and automated systems; managing data standardization; developing integration standards, processes and methodologies; performing cross-functional analysis for applications interfaces, interoperability and integration; providing functional and technical integration solutions; developing common shared infrastructure services; and managing migration and integration through the use of program metrics tools and capabilities.”

For that to be possible, however, government agencies must be aware of Encore II and understand the benefits of doing business through it. That’s why both DISA and the prime contractors are devoting considerable efforts to publicizing the program, with DITCO setting up a Website to assist customers in preparing task order packages.

One company taking an active role is Raytheon, which has created an outreach campaign conducting IDIQ road shows and trainings. “Encore II is a highlighted IDIQ at our road shows,” said Moeller. “Last year alone we conducted 50 IDIQ training events resulting in significant growth. This strategy and business model has increased our use of IDIQs by 382 percent, and offers customers the speed and flexibility that IDIQs require.”

Over all, the view of many participating companies is perhaps best exemplified by this comment from Zayas of EDS: “Encore II is definitely a fully functioning contract at this point, and EDS looks forward to many more opportunities to help DISA address their business and IT challenges and achieve their mission objectives.” ♦