“Nature and/or description of the action being approved:
The Agency plans to issue a task order using other than fair opportunity. No other services will satisfy agency requirements in the time available to reprocure the incumbent services. This action is a logical follow-on (1 year) to existing task order # HHSN316201200193W, Task Order 140D0418F0081 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC): Chief Information Officer – Solutions and Partners 3 (NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) CIO-SP3)) being issued to allow time to transition ITA’s IT infrastructure solution to CATTS, once CATTS comes online.
A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs:
IT Infrastructure Support for all systems (Microsoft Office 365, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, and Citrix) for the entire International Trade Administration (ITA), which has approximately 3,000 employees and contractors working in more than 220 offices located in more than 100 U.S cities and 75 foreign countries. Work done under this contract may also support critical ITA business partners with whom ITA shares information and/or facilities. Such partners may include, but are not limited to, other organizations within the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Foreign Agriculture Service, and State Government Economic Development Organizations.
The value of this action is estimated to be approximately $6,475,552.00. The contract term is one (1) year.
An identification of the exception to fair opportunity and the supporting rationale, including a demonstration of the proposed Contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the exception cited. Describe why the relationship between the initial order and the follow-on is logical (e.g. in terms of scope, period of performance, or value):
The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C): The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract.
This is a follow-on order to a competitively awarded small business set-aside contract issued using the procedures at FAR 16.505. In the interest of economy and efficiency, this follow-on contract will allow for vital continuity of services. No other Offeror is able to provide the continued services in the same manner as the incumbent, who already has cleared staff in place and is currently engaged in providing infrastructure support.
There is not time to allow a transition to a new contractor without having a break in service.
The program office had planned to recompete this requirement under the new Department of Commerce (DOC) (CATTS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA); however, the requirement has been delayed due to award protests until at least mid-December 2023. The IT infrastructure services provided under the incumbent task order are mission-critical; a break in service would be detrimental to the DOC. This follow-on is logical as it is for the same scope of services and the incumbent task order was issued competitively; CIOSP3 contract holders were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.
A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:
The Contracting Officer determines that the anticipated pricing will be fair and reasonable based on comparison with historical pricing information that exists for similar services, in addition to the reduced price risk of placing an order against a precompeted, pre-priced GWAC.”
“A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the exception to fair opportunity before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made:
This follow-on is time limited to allow re-competition of the requirement as soon as feasible.”
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