A06 - FFIP BPR_ FAR JOFOC 7_27_21 (9 Month Base-3 month Option) Contract_bridge.pdf

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United States Department of Agriculture Limited Sources Justification for an Order/BPA Exceeding the Simplified Acquisition Threshold

Federal Supply Schedules/Multiple Award Schedule Program

FAR 8.405

Control No. (if applicable) ______________________

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Business Center, Financial Management Division, serviced by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department Administration (DA), Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP), Procurement Operations Division

(POD)

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

The USDA OCP POD is contemplating a sole source, firm fixed price bridge BPA call per FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C) for support services required to sustain the current FFIP Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) activities. The current contractor on the FFIP BPR requirements, is familiar with FPACs efforts, and has established the necessary financial process expertise required to support the program's specialized nature of systems and tasks.

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value).

This Bridge contract will include the following BPR tasks:

• Task Area 1: Business Process Mapping

• Task Area 2: Business Process Reengineering

The contractor will be responsible for documenting how FSA/CCC business processes/features will be supported by FMMI including Business Process Maps, Business Process Configuration Guides and Organizational Impact Documents. and posting models for non-loan and non- fee based FSA/CCC Farm Programs.

The contractor will be responsible to determine how financial transactions will be categorized in FMMI for internal and external reporting that includes the following:

• Analyzing the impact of BPR on accounting entries and assess whether they will generate upward or downward adjustments;

• Validate new business scenarios designed in BPR map cleanly to the USSGL authorized transaction codes; and

• Provide a mapping of the as-is posting model to the target state

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This call will provide FFIP Federal Product Management and Product Owners support in designing business processes in FMMI for FSA/CCC program financials. The period of performance will be a 9-month base period at a value of $678,402 with (1) 3-month option period valued at $225,745 for a total estimated value of $904,147.

4. The authority and supporting rationale.

The following circumstance justifies limiting the source under FAR 8.405-6:

FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C) – In the interest of economy and efficiency, the new work is a logical follow-on to an original Federal Supply Schedule.

The USDA FPAC requires support services to ensure the continuation of the FFIP BPR activities.

USDA proposes to issue a sole source BPA call directly to TeraThink against their existing multiple award BPA, which was previously competed under the SSLoBS Master BPA. TeraThink was awarded this BPA with no sole source or limited source procedures. This award would represent a progression of the work completed to date and ensure timely continuation of the objectives of the FFIP BPR Contract. No other vendor is capable of providing these services currently due to the specialized nature of the requirements and the understanding of the systems and how they inter-relate.

TeraThink is currently on-site supporting the FFIP DM requirement since September 2018, have developed specialized knowledge of the FMMI relevant data and data quality required for decision making and successful data conversion, have the current tools and access to the environments necessary for data profiling, cleansing, and conversion, have currently badged employees with government laptops (reestablishment of badging and laptop issuance is currently a 3-4 month lead time due to COVID and the laptop supply chains are disrupted with uncertain delivery timeframes), and a new vendor would not be able to get “fingers on keyboards” until almost half-way through the planned PoP at no fault of their own.

FPAC is working on a new procurement (Chestnut) with a planned award in FY2022 Q2 for the Program Financial Services functional area and is expected to include the FFIP requirements.

It is not in the government’s best interest to award a duplicative effort to another vendor and multiple vendor transitions within 12 months.

Multiple transitions will require overlapping vendors adding potentially an additional 120 days of transition costs to the effort not accounting for delays in onboarding/GFE provisioning

Any benefits of competing the call would not overcome the detriment in terms of economy and efficiency of changing vendors in the middle of the overall project considering delays in onboarding personnel and getting the company familiarized with the history of the systems and the future roadmap being defined to date and moving into the future.

5. A statement demonstrating the unique qualifications of the proposed contractor or the nature of the action requiring the use of the authority.

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TeraThink ensures the retention of FSA/CCC business process and internal control expertise required for organizational adoption of the processes as the programs migrate to FMMI without introducing risk to the FSA/CCC financial audit. The only solution ensuring the integrity and quality of the reengineered financial business processes, and their timely and effective adoption by the organization is to award a bridge contract to TeraThink. The BPR costs associated with a contractor turnover is estimated at $1M, including the onboarding timeframe associated which is anticipated to take 30-45 days. FFIP would need to retain the current contractor during this transition/onboarding period to avoid significant disruption to delivery resulting in a duplicative cost during the PI. Once onboarded, training and team forming will impact the current Agile Release Train (ART) velocity. Today the ART averages 20 features a Program Increment (PI) whereas post award velocity is anticipated to dip by 50% for an additional 1-2 PIs. The economy and efficiency of a logical follow on bridge contract outweighs any possible costs that could be recovered through competition.

TeraThink was instrumental in designing the business processes and providing training to prepare the organization for the successful migration of Headquarters-administered FSA/CCC Phase 1 programs to FMMI beginning October 2018, and is now supporting the development and organizational preparedness activities for FAS CCC Grants and WBSCM CCC programs planned for migration in FY21. FPAC is preparing for migration of the initial FSA farm programs to FMMI in 2022 and incrementally thereafter. Successful implementation of the FSA farm program depends on TeraThink’s expert and integral knowledge of the FPAC program Integrated Financial Management (IFM) processes and the approved IFM / FMMI integration architecture. As a key team member, TeraThink has in-depth knowledge of the FSA/CCC re-engineered business processes, design, and configuration, with the appropriate internal controls, required to migrate FSA farm programs and is uniquely positioned to prepare and train the impacted staff for adoption of these processes

6. Description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

The USDA performed market research and 9 vendors are available via the USDA-wide BPA Shared Services Line of Business (SSLoBS). Shared Services Lines of Business Solution (SSLoBS) & IT Governance Management Support Services contract holder TeraThink was identified as having the capability to provide USDA FFIP BPR Support. In addition, as part of the market research, the below techniques were utilized.

• Spoke with existing users and customers

• Reviewed interested/ potential vendors databases

• Reviewed DAITSS for potential vendors

• Reviewed CALC for rates

The SSLoBS BPA was previously competed on GSA and established a USDA-wide contract vehicle.

GSA pricing has already been determined fair and reasonable. Competing to all vendors on the SSLoBS would lead to additional cost that would not be made up via competition.

Further market research was not conducted because the only solution ensuring the integrity and quality of the Data Management processes, and their timely and effective execution by the organization is to award a bridge contract to TeraThink. In the unlikely event the work is not completed during the

Page 4 Version 03152021 duration of the bridge contract, this effort will be fully re-competed and resulting extensive market research conducted

7. Any other facts supporting the justification.

The FFIP BPR/Internal Controls call order was competed on SSLOBS and awarded to TeraThink, in May 2018. The program was initially organized in four phased deployments. The contracts awarded to TeraThink were intended to support business process development and for the four-phase program. In October 2019, FPAC and OCFO leadership transitioned the program to the Scaled Agile Framework for the remaining programs.

The BPR costs associated with a contractor turnover is estimated at $1M, including the onboarding timeframe associated which is anticipated to take 30-45 days. FFIP would need to retain the current contractor during this transition/onboarding period to avoid significant disruption to delivery resulting in a duplicative cost during the PI. Once onboarded, training and team forming will impact the current Agile Release Train (ART) velocity. Today the ART averages 20 features a Program Increment (PI) whereas post award velocity is anticipated to dip by 50% for an additional 1-2 PIs.

8. Statement of actions the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition if subsequent acquisitions are anticipated.

Acquisition planning is in progress for the new Chestnut requirements in Fiscal Year 2022. Chestnut is an FPAC wide acquisition strategy planned to support all FPAC program financial service requirements, inclusive of FFIP BPR.

9. Determination by the ordering activity Contracting Officer (CO) that the order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

Placing this call represents the best value to the government. Award will be made based on the receipt of a technically acceptable quote containing a fair and reasonable price. USDA will submit the existing SOO with any needed updates based on current activity. The Contracting Officer will determine, after considering the level of effort and the mix of skills available for the tasks needed, that the proposed order represents a reasonable total price and will be the best value for the Government. The resulting call will be firm-fixed-price.

Certifications & Approval

The information provided for this justification has been reviewed and certified accurate and complete by:

Doug Pursley Program/Technical Personnel.

Contracting Officer (not exceeding $750,000). I have reviewed this justification and certify it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Approved.

Reviewed and forwarding to the Procuring Activity Advocate (MASCO or Delegate).

John Flores Contracting Officer

Additional Reviews & Approvals

Signatures are required at each threshold up to the total estimated dollar value of the acquisition

Advocate for competition for the procuring activity (MASCO or Delegate approved by HCA for USDA) (if over $750,000, but not exceeding $15 million). I have reviewed this justification and certify it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Approved.

Reviewed and forwarding to the Head of the Procuring Activity/HCA.

Richard R. Jiron Mission Area Advocate for Competition

DOUGLAS

PURSLEY

Digitally signed by DOUGLAS

PURSLEY

Date: 2021.08.02 15:36:41 -05'00'

JOHN

FLORES

Digitally signed by

JOHN FLORES

Date: 2021.08.04 09:06:05 -06'00'