AOP10_INTERACTIVE_DATA_FUTURESOURCE_SERVICE_signed.pdf

USDA

United States Department of ______________________________________ ~

Agriculture

Office of the Assistant Secretary for Departmental Management

Management Services

Procurement Operations Division

Reporters Building 300 7"' Street, SW, Suite 353 Washington, DC 20024

ACQUISITION OPERATING PROCEDURE (AOP)

FROM: Scott C. Wolz Isl Jan 19 2011 Acting Chief, Procurement Operations Division

SUBJECT: AOP No.10: Justification and Approvals - Simplified Acquisition Procedures

+ PURPOSE: The purpose of this Acquisition Operating Procedure (AOP) is to provide a standardized format of a Justifications and Approvals for Simplified Acquisition Procedures prescribed in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.304(a)(l), Other Than Full and Open Competition for proposed contract actions up to the simplified acquisition threshold of $150,000.

+AUTHORITIES: FAR 6.304(a)(l).

Approving Official Dollar Titres/told

Contracting Officer up to $150,000

+ PROCEDURES:

The Contracting Officer will ensure the Technical/Program Official or Point of Contact complete, review changes made to and approve the Justification and Approval - MINI (Attachment).

Attachment

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL - SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION PROCEDURE FOR

OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Pursuant to FAR 6. 304(a)(l), the justification must contain sufficient facts and rationale to justify the use of the authority. This justification will be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities wit/tin 14 davs of contract award for Only One Responsible Source or wit/tin 30 days of contract award for any other authorities cited in Item # 4.

1. Contracting Office: Procurement Operations Division

2. Description of Action:

4.

Requirements: 0New ~Repeat Pricing: 0Firm-Fixed Price 0Time & Materials 0Cost

3. Name of Suggested Contractor: interactive Data Street Address: 62234 Collections Center Drive City, State, Zip: Chicago, IL 60693-0622 Phone: 212-771-6811 CHARLIE PROCACCINI

5. Description of the Supplies or Services:

Interactive Data is a trusted leader in financial information, they deliver a comprehensive set of products and services designed to meet the needs of the front, middle and back offices at some of the largest and most well known institutions around the world. They support their clients operational workflow through a broad range of offerings, such as millions of independent evaluations of fixed income securities, a wide range of global reference data and listed markets pricing, ultra-low latency data and, sophisticated analytical tools, customized web-based financial information systems, and desktop solutions, including their eSignal

Suite of Products. Interactive Data collects, edits, maintains and delivers pricing and pricing-related data from more than 450 markets and exchanges globally. This end-of-day, intra-day and real-time data provides the mission-critical information needed to value diverse portfolios and power financial applications. The data includes bid and offer, last trade, open and close, high and low and volume data. End-of-day pricing data, is available from 120 markets and exchanges globally, is delivered to clients as the markets close.

6. Authority Cited: (Check one authority that applies)

~Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy the agency requirements: (JO USC 2304(c)(l) or 41 USC 253(c)(l); FAR 6.302-1).

0Unusual and compelling urgency: (JO USC 2304(c)(2) or 41 USC 253(c)(2); FAR 6.302-2).

0Industrial mobilization, engineering, developmental, or research capability; or expert services:

(10 USC 2304(c)(3) or 41 USC 253(c)(3); FAR 6.302-3). .

0National Security: (JO USC 2304(c)(6) or 41 USC 253(c)(6); FAR 6.302-6).

0Intemational agreement: (10 USC 2304(c)(4) or 41 USC 253(c)(4); FAR 6.302-4).

0Sole source acquisition of certain commercial items under the test program: (41 USC 428(a);

Section 4202 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996; or FAR 13.501 (a)(l)(ii)).

0Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949: (40 USC 501, Section 201; FAR 8.405-6)

7. Reason for Authority Cited: (State why this is the only source to provide the required supplies or services)

~Services can only be provided from the original source as this is a follow-on requirement for the continued provision of highly specialized services.

0Award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition.

0Supplies or services are needed immediately to satisfy mission requirements.

[g]Additional Information:

a. What harm will come to the Government if the desired supplies or services are not provided on time?

The Office of the Chief Economist (OCE), along with partnering agencies advise the Secretary on the implications of economic events, policies, and programs affecting the U.S. food and fiber system and rural areas. The OCE also issues long- and short-term forecasts of U.S. and global crop and livestock commodities supply and use, which are critical for public and private decision making. A small office, the OCE must obtain, on an ad hoc basis, data from a wide variety of hard-to-find sources. These data are used to provide background information and/or to serve as a basis for economic analysis and forecasts needed by the Secretary, senior decision makers in the Department, and the food and fiber sector of the United States.

Failure of the OCE to provide objective, reliable, timely, and comprehensive analysis hinders the Department in efficiently implementing policies and programs, and deprives the public of unbiased and authoritative information necessary for a smoothly functioning agricultural economy.

b. What harm will come to the Government if the desired contractor does not receive the award?

ERS, a partnering agency, utilizes the historical and current agricultural futures contacts provided by Inter Active Data. InterActive Data provide this information to them upon request from their analysts. The data is needed to support one of their Season-Average Price forecasting tools. Such a forecast is made several times monthly for the World Board, RMA and other individual requests throughout the year.

The user-friendly format allows the client to easily retrieve data from a wide variety of •sources into a single spreadsheet. OCE has developed several hundred spreadsheets (and corresponding analyses) dependent on database retrieval from Interactive data. Elimination of this service would require a large resource expenditure to recreate the existing spreadsheets and analyses using other database sources. Such resources are simply not available at a reasonable cost to the OCE. The system permits OCE access to a large amount of data, without the large expenditures of money, time, and effort required to obtain information from a myriad of individual sources.

No comparable service is known to exist at such a low cost per data series.

8. Action to Increase Competition: (State what actions will be taken to increase competition before subsequent acquisition of the supplies of services is required)

Extensive research reveals no system that combines such a comprehensive database with such an easy to-use interface.

9. Market Research/Survey: (Describe the extent of the market survey conducted to identify qualified sources and the results thereof "Market Survey" is attempts you made to ascertain whether other qualified sources exist.

The survey may consist of written, telephonic, or World Wide Web inquires)

Two major sources of economic data, Haver Analytics and Moody's Economy.com also provide good, comprehensive databases. Both require payment on an ad hoc basis, making predictions as to budget impact difficult. Neither provides the case of updating that is incorporated in the Datastream product and neither has the comprehensive level of commodity coverage available from Thomson Datastream.

We currently subscribe to CRBTrader.com, which is a good source of historic and current commodity data. However, use of their information requires an overnight download, potentially inviting security concerns. In addition, coverage of economic indicators is poor.

10. Procurement History:

Previous Contract Number: AG-3142-P-14-0093 ------ Previously Competed: ON/A [g)No 0Yes Previous Authority for Other Than Full & Open Competition:

CERTIFICATIONS:

11. Technical Certification: (I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance included in this Justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief)

Technical /Program Official Signature: S:ci::::L-~ Date: ~I l'f / / S--- Position Title (Division Chief, higher): e_hA~ r ~SD ,J Email: ~~,... ~ OQ!.. l( ld~ .,.t

12. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: (I hereby determine that the anticipate cost for this proposed contract action will be fair and reasonable)

0 Justification Approved 0 Justification Disapproved

Contracting Officer Signature: ---------------- Date: ------

MonicaL.Taylor Stamp

MonicaL.Taylor Typewritten Text

MonicaL.Taylor Typewritten Text 9-25-15