Early yesterday, social media was abuzz with news leaking that Phase 1 notifications for the CIO-SP4 IDIQ contract were out once again.
The OS AI team was contacted by several GovCon leaders, sharing their insights and good news, but we were more excited to see the many great conversations taking placing online in a transparent and collaborative way. To help keep the dialogue flowing and to keep you abreast of the competitive and partner landscape, we point you to three threads that are gaining steam and are certain to be more active in the days ahead:
- The first comes from well-known Capture and BD SME, Brad Barker, as he broke the news on LinkedIn that his “little #CIOSP4 birdies were” feeding him information, with several firms sharing the information they received from NITAAC.
- This second post from industry vet Robert Turner shared some “very high scores” that a few of his clients posted … and yet did Not make the cut for Phase I, while one commenter predicted that “Phase 2 is going to be a blood bath.” That is a bold choice of words – you can see all of the comments for yourself here.
- A third post that really drew the attention of the OS AI team came from Al Sowers, the CEO for OneZero Solutions, a rapidly emerging SDVOSB. The post, entitled “Let’s Discuss: Scorecard GWACs”, hits on a major concern of many small businesses, that the trend of Scorecard GWACs is not going away anytime soon, and that Industry has caught up and is “gaming the system”, with true “organic” small businesses struggling to gain Prime access to these extremely important GWACs and IDIQ contracts. Some very important points were shared by Al and the many commenters. Follow the dialogue here and jump in. #EngageFedGov
Outside of these threads, the OS AI team connected with four different capture and industry growth leaders yesterday to get their take on timing and the competitive and partner landscape moving forward for CIO-SP4, each of whom supported multiple bidders vying for a spot on this important contract. We share below some of the general themes and opinions shared during these conversations:
NITAAC will get it done. It was not unanimous, but there does seems to be a high level of confidence that NITAAC will get the awards completed and wade through the anticipated protests before the end of the fiscal year. A primary value of the scorecard approach is that the black and white nature of the evaluation makes it easier to fend off challenges.
It is a JV/ANC world, and we are all just living in it. Gone are the days when a vanilla small business, even one that has had great success on large contracts across several agencies, could confidently expect to compete for a Prime spot on a major GWAC or IDIQ without aligning with a large business partner. And no one can blame the large companies for buying into the JV game. In addition to the great opportunity they have to mentor a small business, as one capture exec put it “large mentors in a mentor protégé JV, if they structure it right, have the ability to secure 60% of a “small business” contract by first getting the larger share allowed as a mentor, and they can then serve as a sub to the protégé on the same contract to garner a portion of the remaining 40%”. For many large companies, CIO-SP4 is a win-win scenario as they can secure major workshare on both large and small business competitions.
Future Roads for CIO-SP4 are Paved with Good Intentions – The intent put forth by NITAAC leadership at the outset of this competition was admirable as the structure of the solicitation included certain components that leveled the playing field for all types of small business entities. As so often happens, after responding to and adjusting the requirements to address issues identified and raised during several rounds of protests and challenges, the expectation from most we spoke to is that a relatively small fraction of the final Small Business awardees on CIO-SP4 will be non-JV/ANC small businesses, when compared to previous iterations of this GWAC.
What does this mean for the future of CIO-SP4? Any IDIQ contract is only as good as the vendors who are on it and we are sure that NITAAC leadership will find a way to make it a success. However, it was noted by several we spoke to that, unlike any of the predecessor contracts, dozens of highly successful small businesses that carry significant track records and key sets of relationships across the Federal sector, many of which would likely have been able to secure a seat on prior contracts, are now disenfranchised.
Prior iterations of this GWAC relied on the reach of these types of firms to actively market the vehicle, but these companies, who 6 months ago expected that their “option A” contracting vehicle for the foreseeable future would be CIO-SP4, are now actively advising government customers to look at more streamlined options that can get to these organic small businesses. This includes pushing for more limited competition GSA buys, while they are also targeting a range of expiring CIO-SP3 task orders. Something tell us that GSA will welcome this with open arms.
Hope Persists that SB concerns will be heard. Brad Barker, one of the capture executives we spoke with put it best when he said: “I look at this as the next phase in the opportunity for open dialogue between NITAAC, other government agencies, and Industry. As these larger IDIQs are competed, early and open dialogue is needed to figure out how to balance the needs of the agencies we support and the companies that support them. I am primarily concerned that the true Small Business marketplace is being impacted but will hold off until we see the number of JVs that end up with awards.”
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