NIH Business and Professional Support Services II (NIHBPSS II)

The National Institutes of Health awarded NIH Business and Professional Support Services II, a Master IDIQ with a $45 million shared ceiling, on January 15, 2019 — but ordering closed on January 12, 2020, making this vehicle inactive for new task orders. The vehicle is a successor to NIH Wide Business and Professional Support Services and has been itself superseded by Business and Professional Support Services III, awarded July 14, 2022.

The NIHBPSS II vehicle contracted a broad range of business and professional support services including financial analysis, business solutions, acquisition lifecycle support, business process improvement, organizational assessment, communication and training, program planning and management, supply chain management, asset management, policy development and implementation, system integration, and centers of excellence support. Task orders executed under the vehicle show heavy emphasis on program management support, digital communications services, IT resource center support, policy development, and organizational assessment across multiple NIH institutes and centers.

Of the 58 task orders awarded under NIHBPSS II, three firms dominate: Deloitte Consulting LLP holds 10 orders worth $85.3 million in combined potential value, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. holds 9 orders worth $70.6 million, and Guidehouse Inc. holds 10 orders worth $66.5 million. These three contractors represent approximately 92% of the vehicle's combined potential value. The remaining eight primes are substantially smaller; Advanced Decision Vectors LLC, the fourth-largest by order count, holds only 8 orders worth $10.8 million combined.

Customer concentration at NIH is extreme: the Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations placed 46 of the 58 task orders, representing $184.5 million of the $289 million combined task-order potential value. The remaining six NIH institutes and centers — National Library of Medicine, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development among them — collectively account for roughly 36% of remaining orders but only a small fraction of total value. Work performed was distributed across NIH facilities nationwide.

Task orders were predominantly unrestricted competitive awards: 86% carried no set-aside designation. Small business set-asides comprised 10% of orders, with one 8(a) sole-source and one woman-owned small business sole-source award each. Combined task-order dollars obligated total $254.7 million against the $289 million combined potential value, representing 88% utilization. Ordering momentum declined sharply in the final year before the January 2020 ordering deadline: 18 orders placed in 2019, 21 in 2020, 12 in 2021, and only 7 in 2022. Task orders ranged from under $50,000 (firm fixed-price consulting work) to over $20 million (time-and-materials program management support), with most major awards executed via time-and-materials or labor-hours pricing.

The NIHBPSS II contract provides a wide range of Business and Professional Support Services for Financial Analysis, Business Solutions, and Acquisition Lifecycle Support; Business Process Improvement and Organizational Assessment; Communication and Training; Program Planning and Management Services; Supply Chain Management; Asset Management; Policy Development, Implementation, and Administration; System Integration; and Centers of Excellence Support Services.