Heather Kirk March 9, 2023 1 Comment

We may not be the best at arithmetic, but when an agency states that they will be determining a small business set-aside decision using information provided, and the first question they ask of potential small business bidders is to provide details about their corporate experience leading a $125M five-year contract ($25M a year) of similar size and scope, while in the same request noting that the NAICS they expect to use for this upcoming procurement has a $34M small business size standard, it is easy to understand why so many established small business technology vendors at IRS (who are not joint ventures) opted to sit this one out and/or to respond to this request with a set of feedback and recommendations that deviated from what the agency asked for.  

More than 18 months after publishing the first draft statement of work, the IRS recently posted a new draft SOW and a set of questions intended to help the agency as it refines its acquisition strategy for this high profile enterprise requirement to support Information Technology (IT) Application Development (AD) efforts to deliver a cloud-based ECM platform that contains a Portfolio of case management Solutions/Products capable of supporting issue-resolution across all IRS Lines of Businesses utilizing the ECM Program’s selected COTS development platform (currently Pega). The challenge is a big one – to finally clean up and consolidate the 60 legacy case management systems in use at the IRS today, which result in significant amount of redundancy and overlap in the data, as well as legacy system maintenance costs.  

At a recent industry event hosted by Government Technology & Services Coalition, IRS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer Guy Torres, outlined several major acquisitions that are expected to be recompeted between now and the end of the year. According to post event reporting, the IRS expects to release the ECM SDS solicitation for this 5-year multiple award BPA as an unrestricted competition on GSA MAS at some point in Q3 of FY 2023.  

The requirements for any potential Prime bidder are steep. Beyond the need for a firm to showcase their corporate experience as a prime contractor providing services in similar size, scope, and complexity, companies will have to showcase significant levels of experience supporting large scale Pega and MarkLogic installations, while highlighting their significant talent pool and depth with SAFe implementations and in integrating COTS products with legacy systems. 

Looking to identify Prime or sub partner options? A good place to start is with the list of established Pega Partners who specialize in government (see that list here) and members of the MarkLogic Partner ecosystem (see that list here). While the list of certified Pega partners is long, there are several familiar faces who stick out on the list, including Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, GovCIO, NTT Data, Peraton, Capgemini, EY, Cognizant, Technology Solutions Provider, Inc (TSPi), and rapidly emerging small business Sky Solutions.

Looking for a list of the top large or small business (WOSB, HUBZone, 8(a) or SDVOSB) partners supporting IRS today? Click Here You can filter the list by several key indicators, including socio-economic status, NAICS, Contract vehicle, etc.  

If you are a small business with capabilities and socio-economic status that might support this effort, comment below to let others know.  

Related Data  

Firms drawing the most attention: 

Included below is a list of the large and small companies we have noted as drawing the most views by Government and industry leaders on the OrangeSlices AI consultant directory since the beginning of 2023 and that bring direct past performance and/or related relationships in support of the Internal Revenue Service. 

** An Elev8 GovCon Honoree, noted for a corporate culture that demonstrates its own excellence, making the company a beacon for talent, for partners, and for clients.    

We cannot and will not speculate here as to the reasons for the increased interest, but whether it is a company evaluating them as a potential partner; a federal acquisition leader doing their due diligence; or a consultant weighing their next job move, this group of companies has been receiving increased interest. 

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  1. S T Red

    Your calculus is not wrong. It is business as usual for IRS to put these types of stringent demands for small businesses on all contract vehicles they release. Very very large business friendly.