36C10B20F0181_J_A.pdf

Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service Control Number VA-20-00019369

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Office of Procurement Acquisition and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), for brand name AchieveIt Online, LLC (AchieveIt) Strategic Planning Cloud- Based Web Service.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has a requirement for brand name AchieveIt Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service, which is a cloud-based web service that helps the health care organization’s components develop, monitor, report, and most importantly operationalize organizational strategic planning functions. The goal of the Software as a Service is to reduce time spent by upper management and administrative staff on document development, tracking, and collating information while effectively providing integrated plan management of multiple plans that are easily linked to/rolled up to VA’s corporate strategic plan. VHA requires a health care-focused Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service. The Software as a Service must have backup and disaster recovery for data. VA has acquired AchieveIt for Department-level use, which VA will utilize for at least the next three years. Therefore, VHA would like the web services to coincide with that term. The proposed action is for services only. No hardware or software will be renewed or procured under this proposed action. The period of performance shall be 12 months from award with two 12-month option periods.

The total estimated value of the proposed action is ………., inclusive of options.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited: Based on extensive market research, as described in paragraph 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers of brand name AchieveIt Strategic Planning Cloud- Based Web Service.

The VHA requires a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) cloud-based web service that can develop, monitor, report, and operationalize organizational strategic planning functions across multiple organizational components. VHA also requires direct exporting of the content of individual and multiple plans from the Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service into Microsoft Word documents; this is a critical feature, which alleviates manual report inputs and outputs and reduces time spent by administrative staff on document development, tracking, collating and reporting.

Furthermore, VHA requires the COTS cloud-based web service to be able to efficiently and effectively coordinate and maintain cascading down and rolled up strategic planning functions of a complex, diverse healthcare system. Achievelt is the only cloud-based web service that can that can meet VHA’s requirements and provide these salient characteristics

Failure to obtain the aforementioned AchieveIt Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service will impact VA’s ability to efficiently and effectively coordinate and maintain cascading down and rolled up strategic planning functions of a complex, diverse healthcare system. For example, users in different organizational components can go directly to a single page where they can create and update plan content. Organizational component plans can be viewed individually at a detailed level or collated together into a higher-level, thematic document. AchieveIt groups update requests to components for reporting into a single, automated email, across all organizations and plans.

AchieveIt exports to multiple editable formats, particularly Word and Excel. AchieveIt pushes automated performance reports and dashboards at individual or rolled up levels, removing the need for manually compiling data from multiple sources.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. However, it was determined, that limited competition is viable among resellers for brand name AchieveIt Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website (beta.SAM.gov) and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be fully competed.

8. Market Research: The Government's technical experts conducted market research from January 2020 to February 2020 to ascertain if sources other than AchieveIt or resellers could meet VA’s needs. A Request for Information (RFI) was submitted through the NASA SEWP V portal on January17, 2020. Four responses were received from four NASA SEWP resellers as follows:

RFI Respondent Product/Service Meets Government’s Needs

MetGreen Solutions IBM Planning Analytics No Alvarez AchieveIt Yes ThunderCat Technology InQuisient No Four Points Technology Smartsheet No

The Government’s technical experts determined that only the AchieveIt brand Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service is capable of meeting all of VA’s technical requirements. In February 2020 VA contacted the three RFI respondents whose responses did not meet VA’s requirements and advised them that the Government assessed their solution and determined that they could not meet VA’s requirement.

Neither MetGreen Solutions nor Thundercat Technology responded.

Specifically, IBM Planning Analytics does not meet the following salient characteristic(s): It does not efficiently and effectively coordinate and maintain cascading down and rolled up strategic planning functions of a complex, diverse healthcare system.

InQuisient’s solution does not meet the following salient characteristic(s): It is not a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) cloud-based web service. Additionally, it was determined that the solution could not meet VHA’s requirements to develop, monitor, report, and operationalize organizational strategic planning functions across multiple organizational components as the InQuisient solution is not a primary strategic planning Software as a Service product, and would require an “add on” and additional significant configuration to meet the Government requirements.

Four Points Technology requested and subsequently provided a virtual demonstration of their solution on February 14, 2020. Based on the demonstration, the Government’s technical experts determined that the Smartsheet solution could not meet all of the Government’s technical requirements without modification and significant development.

Specifically, Smartsheet is not capable of exporting MS Word documents without further development of its product. VA requires a COTS software that is capable of exporting MS Word documents, not a modified or additionally developed software. The Four Points Technology solution cannot currently meet and would require significant development to meet VA’s needs. Furthermore, VA required the Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service to be implemented by January 1, 2020. The additional time added to further develop the Smartsheet solution, sixteen weeks, would directly impact the VA mission by continuing to delay the monitoring, reporting and as appropriate, correction of progress and performance of strategic initiatives. After their virtual demonstration, VA advised Four Points Technology on February 14, 2020 that the Government assessed their solution and determined that they could not meet VA’s requirement. Four Points Technology responded and informed the Government on February 14, 2020 that they agreed with the Government assessment. Based on the above market research, it was determined that only AchieveIt brand Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service is capable of meeting all of VA’s technical requirements

Additional market research was conducted in January 2020 by utilizing the NASA SEWP V Provider Lookup Tool to determine whether the AchieveIt brand name Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service is available from resellers that hold NASA SEWP V contracts.

It was determined that there are several resellers of the AchieveIt brand name Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service that hold current NASA SEWP V contracts. Therefore, limited competition is expected among NASA SEWP V GWAC resellers of AchieveIt brand name Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service.

9. Other Facts: None

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

………………………. Date: _________________

Project Manager Signature: ______________________

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on products on NASA SEWP V GWAC have already been determined to be fair and reasonable. There are multiple resellers capable of providing the required brand name AchieveIt Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service described herein and price competition is expected. In the event only one quote is received, price analysis shall be conducted by comparing the quote to the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

………………………. Date: ______________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ______________________

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

………………………. Date: ______________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ______________________

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of AchieveIt brand name Strategic Planning Cloud-Based Web Service on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________ Advocate for Competition

Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics