Net-centric Vehicle of Choice
DISA has formally launched an expanded IT services contract
program designed to be the vehicle of choice to help defense and
government users move into the next generation of netcentric capability.
By Harrison Donnelly
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has formally launched an expanded IT services contract program designed to be the vehicle of choice to help defense and government users move into the next generation of net-centric capability.
The agency in early May released a list of 14 larger companies eligible to compete under the Encore II multiple-award contract (MAC) program for a total of $12.2 billion in business over a 10-year period. Earlier, DISA had selected 12 smaller companies to participate. The small businesses were chosen under somewhat relaxed evaluation criteria, but must compete on equal terms with other companies to win specific contracts.
Encore II, which emerged after a lengthy contract process that included a successful protest of the original list of selections by disappointed competitors, represents a major expansion of the existing Encore program, which has been popular among users and vendors for its speed and ease of use. In addition to raising the spending ceiling from the earlier $2 billion level, the new version of the program adds 10 new task areas and 22 new labor categories that can be acquired.
The contracts can be used to acquire a wide range of products and services, ranging from IT policy planning and business process re-engineering to Web services, operations support, hardware and software. Specific language in the new program authorizes support for the upcoming mandatory transition from Internet Protocol version 4 to IPv6.
DISA officials emphasized that Encore II would be a strategic asset for services, not only for the agency but also the rest of the department and the military services.
“This is our acquisition of services vehicle to help us achieve the interoperable environment for the GIG with all the various different elements of net-centric operations. It has new capabilities beyond anything we have had here at the agency,” said Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, director, SATCOM, Teleport and services for DISA.
“We were able to take the rich contractual history that has supported the agency and other customers in the past, and use that as a basis for our future service acquisitions, as we looked forward to see what types of IT services we would require for DISA and our other customers to make that transition into the service acquisition environment,” Cowen-Hirsch said. “We took the rich legacy that existed contractually in the past and built upon it to posture for the future for all of our IT services requirements, and encapsulate it into the Encore II program.”
Oversight Partnership
Encore II will be administered by the Scott Air Force Base, Ill., field office of DISA’s contracts office, the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO). In addition, the Program Executive Office SATCOM, Teleports and Services (PEO STS) will be involved in program management and oversight to ensure that the program is aligned with net-centric policy goals.
“This is a partnership,” Cowen-Hirsch said. “The PEO STS has the satcom and teleports under it, but it is on the services side that Encore II fits. Since Encore II is not just a contract any more, this is our premier service vehicle to provide those IT capabilities and services to DISA and beyond.
“So our role here is to provide the executive oversight of the programs so that we’re using this vehicle, and that the contractor and industry partners that we have onboard with us are meeting those government objectives, and the relationship is strong. We’re really focused on the services acquisition side, and migrating toward net-ops capabilities and GIG transformation as we head to the future. We’re employing Encore II in a service acquisition construct consistent not only with statutes and policies, but also with best practices, to leverage those innovative capabilities that industry provides to get those services for the future,” she continued.
“DITCO is our partner in this for the contractual administration—the ordering capabilities and transactional elements that are integral to ensuring that the contract side of this is employed properly,” Cowen-Hirsch said. “Our role is to provide that program execution element, so that we’re getting the type of strategic benefit from a service acquisition that was intended when we initiated Encore II.”
The process of creating Encore II did not always run smoothly for DISA officials, however. The initial selection of participating companies, announced in early 2007, was challenged by four companies not selected, including three that had been contractors under Encore I. The protests were sustained by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) later that year.
“We were told to do corrective action—that because we had engaged some of the contractors in clarification questions, we had actually gone to discussions without declaring a competitive range,” recalled Evelyn DePalma, DISA director of procurement and DITCO chief. “We were told to go back and do a competitive range determination, with ‘meaningful’ discussions, further price realism, and better descriptions of our past performance discriminators.
“At the time we had the protests, we were in the middle of the evaluation for the small businesses,” DePlama added. “So we applied that corrective action to the small businesses even though we didn’t have to. We ended up with a much longer process than we had anticipated. We went into meaningful discussions with the offerors on more than one occasion, to try to get them to improve the quality of their proposals. They were very successful in improving the quality of their proposals, such that at the time the decision was being made the vendors all were low risk and had good technical scores.”
As a result, DISA officials decided at that point to expand the pool of eligible contractors. The final version of the program includes 14 of 16 companies that applied for the large business (full and open competition) portion, although only 12 of 49 small business applicants.
That larger number is beneficial, officials say, because it expands the range of available IT skills and services, while also ensuring that all contracts are awarded on a competitive basis.
“We’ve discovered on MAC contracts in the past that all vendors do not bid on all work. They incur bid and proposal costs each time they bid, so they tend to go after only the work that they think they can win or be competitive for. So over time, it isn’t that you have to do a lot of work with all 26 vendors, but end up having a fairly small pool for a specific piece of work,” DePalma observed.
Path for Small Business
As mentioned, Encore II’s approach to small business was to ease criteria for selection for the program, while not having specific set-asides or exemptions from full competition. The only guarantee under the program is that each selected company will receive at least $10,000 in government business.
“DISA and DITCO are very proud of the fact that we consistently meet our small business goals,” DePlama said. “Along with the rest of the federal government, we have some challenges with the service-disabled veteran owned small businesses, but generally we are meeting our goals and have done so consistently for the past six years.
“Given that, we made a path for small business on this solicitation, where we allowed small businesses to bid without having to respond to each one of the sample task orders when they did their proposals. That was to make sure that we got enough small businesses into the mix. They had a smaller set of technical and management evaluation criteria,” she noted.
“But now that the awards have been made, they will be competing with the large businesses in fair opportunity scenarios. They’ll have a chance to compete against the ‘big boys,’” DePalma promised.
“We have some excellent commercial providers as our partners on Encore II,” Cowen-Hirsch added. “This allows us to get innovative and yet integrated solutions that can ultimately support the warfighter. All the advantages in setting up the right type of partnership will give the agency and department innovative partnerships with a wide variety of IT solution and service providers, including both small and large businesses.”
One small business selected for the program, for example, is Anvicom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Command Information, a provider of next-generation networking services that currently has about $50 million in annual revenue.
“We’re extremely pleased to have been selected as a participant,” said Jerry Edgerton, chief executive officer of Command Information. “That provides us with a long-term vehicle in which we can provide a variety of services to DoD and other government agencies. Historically, we’ve provided a variety of IT services, including network engineering and project management. The true focus of our company, however, is around the evolution to the next generation Internet, in the transition from IPv4 to IPv6.”
As Edgerton noted, DoD has been a leading proponent of IPv6, with its vastly increased number of available addresses. “We think that our focus and ability to provide transition services to the next-generation Internet Protocol will be our ‘sweet spot,’ and we’ll hopefully be unique in the provision of those services. That’s why we’re especially excited about the opportunity that this contract brings us.”
“Our expertise in next generation Internet Protocol will be our niche,” Edgerton added. “We’ve positioned ourselves in that space, and we think we have the tools and capabilities that will make us unique. We also have significant experience in network operations and design, which coupled with the IPv6 experience will give us the qualifications to be successful.” ♦
