Best-In-Class_BIC_Multi-Agency_Contract_MAC_Survey.pdf

Best-In-Class (BIC) Multi-Agency Contract (MAC) Survey

Start of Block: Background

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is developing a new indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) best-in-class (BIC) multi-agency contract (MAC) contract program to support federal agencies’ procurement requirements for services. GSA’s goal is to establish a BIC MAC that is flexible, can evolve and expand over time, and supports a broad range of mission and service needs through a highly qualified industrial base. Led by the Federal Acquisition Service’s (FAS) Office of Professional Services and Human Capital Categories (PSHC) the contract program will be developed with collaborative engagement from federal ordering agencies, industry partners, multiple FAS programs and offices, the Small Business Administration, and other key stakeholders. One feedback channel that will be used to solicit input is the RFI process. This RFI is the first of several, and seeks feedback on various acquisition strategy topics. Responses to the survey will inform GSA’s decision-making as this unique contract program is developed. All feedback provided will be reviewed and considered.

We value your feedback and look forward to hearing from you. RFI Response Due Date:

March 17, 2021 Provide Responses via Qualtrics Industry Day to Discuss Input and Resolve Submitted Questions: April 1, 2021 1:00p.m. EST REGISTRATION Follow us online! You can access updates and the latest news on the BIC MAC by joining the Professional Services Category Interact Community. This RFI focuses on concepts for the core elements of the IDIQ’s acquisition strategy. To help ensure everyone understands the concepts being presented in the survey, an overview of the concepts is provided. It is recommended that you review the document fully and have a copy available to reference before responding to the survey questions. GSA BIC MAC Overview

It is estimated that a full response to this RFI will take ~30minutes. If you exit Qualtrics, you have the chance of losing progress of your responses. Only responses completed in Qualtrics will be considered, please do not complete in PDF document.

Company Information

Please complete the information below to the best of your ability. If you have questions about your contract information, you can find your information on the GSA eLibrary page.

https://gsa.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_0tv0xc80RuCKccdFoCAY0g https://interact.gsa.gov/groups/professionalservicescategory https://interact.gsa.gov/groups/professionalservicescategory

Where the Government asks for URLs, please only provide URLs, non URLs will be deleted.

If an email is not provided, your company will not receive a receipt of your response or the Agency POC once this RFI closes.

o Company Name: ________________________________________________ o GSA Contract Number or NA o First Name: ________________________________________________ o Last Name: ________________________________________________ o POC Email: ________________________________________________ o POC Phone #: ________________________________________________ o Company Website URL: ________________________________________________ o DUNS: # ________________________________________________ o CAGE Code: ________________________________________________

Contracts your company holds

▢ Schedules

▢ OASIS

▢ HCaTS

▢ Alliant / Alliant 2

▢ VETS 2

▢ 8a Stars II

▢ Other GSA IT

▢ BMO

▢ Other Agency IDIQs

What is the smallest size standard that you qualify for (by annual receipts - ref. 13 CFR § 121.104) o $8M o $12M o $16.5M o $22M o $30M o $35M o $41.5M o None

What is the smallest size standard that you qualify for (by employees - ref. 13 CFR § 121.106) o 500 o 750 o 1000 o 1250 o 1500 o None

Indicate which socioeconomic categories describe your company

▢ 8(a) participant

▢ Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB)

▢ Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB)

▢ Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)

▢ HUBZone

▢ Other: [list] ________________________________________________

What Agencies do you have experience working with?

▢ Air Force / Space Force

▢ Army

▢ Department of Defense

▢ Defense Health Administration

▢ Navy

▢ US Coast Guard

▢ Agriculture

▢ Interior

▢ Health and Human Services

▢ Homeland Security

▢ Education

▢ EPA

▢ NASA

▢ Commerce

▢ Transportation

▢ Veterans Affairs

▢ Other (please list the agency):

End of Block: Background Start of Block: Contract Structure / Domain

The following questions will focus on the concept covered in the overview. GSA will ask a series of questions about scope and domains to determine what details we may need to adjust about our concepts and assumptions.

Given the general concept for domains, and the fact that your company would propose to the domain(s) and qualify for all of the NAICS in that domain as part of fair opportunity grouping, would there be any interest in being able to opt out of certain NAICS codes within a domain grouping? [Overview 1.1] o Yes o No o Unsure

Currently, GSA is considering using domains that generally follow a Category Management structure with some additional specialized domains. The draft list of assumed domains to be included in the initial rollout is covered in Overview 2.1.

What additional domains or specialized services do you think should be included in the initial scope of the contract to capture much needed areas of spend by customer agencies? (Limited to 250 Characters)

Do you agree that reducing contract duplication, such as Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) consolidation, is beneficial to industry? [Overview 3.1] o Yes

GSA is considering implementing socioeconomic Reserves (per FAR 19.503) in order to streamline administration and accommodate changes in small business regulations. The objective would be for companies and buying agencies to rely on awardees' IDIQ size representations (based on size at time of MAC offer) for socioeconomic set aside task orders in the corresponding Reserves groups. [Overview 3.2]

Customer agencies would know that a listed company in a category would still qualify them for small business credit. In practice, implementation of Reserves would operate very similarly to the way small business and socioeconomic set asides operate on Multiple Award Schedules.

Reserves will ensure that there is sufficient coverage of each socioeconomic category in FAR 19.000(a)(3) in each domain to support socioeconomic set aside competitions.

Indicate the extent to which the model for reserves is favorable.

o Favorable o Somewhat Favorable o Neither favorable nor unfavorable o Somewhat Unfavorable o Unfavorable

GSA is considering combining small and large contracts based on the need for Reserves, as detailed in the previous question. Indicate the extent to which find combining small and large contracts favorable.

o Favorable o Somewhat Favorable o Neither favorable nor unfavorable

What concerns do you have about the use of the domain fair opportunity structure, if any?

(Limited to 500 Characters)

Is there another contract structure that you think GSA should consider? (Limited to 250 Characters)

End of Block: Contract Structure / Domain Start of Block: Source Selection and Small Business Strategies

The next series of questions will focus on source selection and small business strategies.

Questions on source selection will be limited to overall structure. The next RFI will focus on actual criteria for source selection. For now, any examples shown are based on early assumptions and past IDIQ models.

The current assumption is that this solicitation will be continuously open (similar to MAS) [Overview 6.2] with no caps or limits on the number of contract awards in a domain [Overview 6.1]. Indicate the extent that you find the following features favorable. (From Favorable to Unfavorable)

Favorable Somewhat favorable

Neither Favorable nor unfavorable

Somewhat Unfavorable Unfavorable

Continuously Open (always open) o o o o o Continuously

Open (Quarterly open windows) o o o o o No caps on number of vendors in a domain o o o o o Caps on some domains based on customer agency requirements o o o o o

GSA is considering a model for source selection that is criteria based. This model, covered in Overview 6.5, would have different standards for each domain. The standards for qualifying would have some basic required criteria, and some ‘enough’ type criteria (e.g., OCONUS and

CONUS, Top Secret Clearances, ISO 9000, etc.), that when combined qualify a vendor to join a domain. The criteria and qualifying factors would generally allow for flexibility within a given section, and would allow the use of experience across domains if applicable.

Indicate the extent which you find this model favorable for submitting experience and understanding your ability to qualify for a domain.

o Favorable o Somewhat Favorable o Neither Favorable nor unfavorable

GSA is considering methods to allow for the use of experience as a subcontractor [Overview 7.2], but will need to find a way to verify that the work claimed was actually performed by the subcontractor. Based on industry feedback, the current assumption is that verification by the prime is preferred.

Indicate the extent to which you agree with that statement.

o Agree o Somewhat Agree o Neither agree nor disagree o Somewhat disagree o Disagree

If you are a business and one of your subcontractors wanted to use their experience working under one of your prime contracts to qualify for domains, and they submitted the experience through the system, which then flagged you to provide approval, but you would only have to verify their experience one time, would this be agreeable? (Keep in mind that this information could be made available to agency buyers, so that the subcontractor shouldn’t have to ask again for verification in the future if this contract is being used) o Yes o No o Prefer a different method o N/A - I have not managed subcontractors

The following questions seek input on a variety of teaming arrangements and methodologies for evaluating them. [Overview 7.1] Please indicate, with Yes, No, or Unsure whether it is reasonable to:

Yes Unsure No

Require (or evaluate more favorably) companies in a teaming arrangement have worked together in the past o o o Restrict business entities to a limited number of teams within a domain (e.g 1-3 maximum) o o o Restrict the number of companies on a teaming arrangement (actual TBD, but for example 5) o o o

Limit each experience project to only being submissible once per domain (i.e., team members could not duplicate projects across multiple teams’ proposals) o o o

Require, as a condition of performance, a workshare proportional to the experience projects relied upon to receive an award. (I.e. you must continue to subcontract with each other to the extent other team members’ projects were used) o o o

Are there other teaming evaluation strategies that GSA should consider based on your experience participating in other IDIQs? (Limited to 500 characters)

End of Block: Source Selection and Small Business Strategies Start of Block: Fair Opportunity and Customer Market Research

The next series of questions focuses on the customer’s experience and their ability to complete market research. As was covered in the overview, any data that GSA makes available to customer agencies would be a direct tie back to the experience that a company submits, either at source selection or in a company profile.

Currently, the assumption is that GSA will require certain project experience for a business to qualify for domain, but that companies would be able to continuously update their profile in order to add to the experience that makes themselves discoverable in customer market research. This profile would function like a flexible, searchable capability statement. [Overview 5.1]

Indicate how likely you are to keep your company profile current and up to date.

o Likely o Somewhat likely o Neither likely nor unlikely o Somewhat unlikely o Unlikely

In the example shown in the overview [5.1.1], there were functional categories identified that would be linked to a domain. The current assumption is that these functional categories would be used for market research purposes only and would not be order level qualifiers.

As such, GSA intends for the categorization of experience to be self selected by a company when adding experience in their profile. Functional categories would be fixed, in that only standardized categories could be applied to a project, but flexible, in that GSA could add new categories at a later date based on customer and industry input. The next series of questions focuses on the functional categories.

Indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statements. (Agree to Disagree)

Agree Slightly Agree

Neither agree nor disagree

Slightly Disagree Disagree

Tagging experience by functional category is an ideal improvement in project categorization o o o o o

I would be honest about the tags that I apply to my project experience o o o o o I would use the tags customers identified to determine whether I am interested in submitting a proposal o o o o o

I believe other companies would be honest about the tags that they apply to project experience o o o o o

I would be open to contracting officers and other agency market researchers flagging experience examples that may have been tagged inappropriately to a given functional category to help with quality control

Quality control measures should be implemented to manage experience tagging.

o o o o o

GSA should verify every project example for validity on a given tag o o o o o Random audits and user driven flags would be an adequate quality control in managing inappropriate experience tagging

To help with streamlining source selection and understanding capabilities, GSA is considering what type of data could be captured relative to a project that helps identify ‘complexity’ of the work. What delineators would you consider useful for customers to scope the complexity of their work, and representative of your own methods for evaluating your company's ability to perform the work?

Rank the options from Very Representative (Rep.) to Not at all Representative (Rep.) (of complexity).

Very Rep. Rep. Moderately Rep. Slightly Rep. Not at all

Rep.

Number of FTE on a project (likely presented as a range such as 1-10, 10- 30, 30-60, etc) o o o o o

Annual dollar value of the project o o o o o Pricing type (i.e. FFP, T&M, Cost, Hybrid) o o o o o Number of simultaneous locations o o o o o

Geographical Region

Experience (likely to group areas such as

‘Middle East’, ‘Southeast Asia’, etc) o o o o o

Variety of labor categories (likely presented as a range)

Are there other capabilities that could help with complexity for GSA to consider in this systematic model? (Limited to 250 characters)

GSA would also want to collect experience related to certifications. Examples would include everything from Approved Cost Accounting System, Facility Clearance Level, to various CMMI and ISO certifications. These would act as filters for market research for customers and capabilities that can be added to your profile. The assumption is that you would be able to update your capabilities at any time.

How much effort does it require to provide this information, knowing that the intent is for you to provide it to GSA once, and have that verification pass to the agency buyer.

o Little to no effort o Some effort o A lot of effort o Unsure / Depends on the Certifications

If you were flagged as a best qualified or 'optimal' vendor in a customer’s market research / first phase task order process like in the example [Overview 4.2], and GSA asked you to respond (via a participation quality control measure) to a simple one question survey as to why you didn’t respond to the RFP, indicate the level of burden it places on industry o Not at all burdensome o Somewhat burdensome o Neither burdensome nor not o Burdensome o Significantly burdensome

End of Block: Fair Opportunity and Customer Market Research Start of Block: IDIQ Pricing

GSA anticipates using the authority provided to us to enhance competition at the task order level by eliminating price as an evaluation factor for the master IDIQ contract award. However, customers have concerns about determining prices fair and reasonable without a master contract price list, so we will need to find a way to provide tools that enable price evaluation.

This would require capturing various forms of transactional data from industry at the very least.

The following questions focus on alternative strategies for collecting labor category and pricing information to assist customers with their IGCE development and price reasonableness determinations.

Do you agree that not using price as an evaluation factor at the master IDIQ level is a good choice?

o Yes

Customers have expressed interest in having GSA still establish standardized labor categories at the contract level with expectations of what level of experience is expected within those standards. If you’re familiar with OASIS, this is what is done today. How limiting or helpful is the standardization of labor categories, knowing that non-listed labor categories can still be used as well, if permitted by the Ordering Contracting Officer.

o Limiting o Somewhat limiting o Neither limiting nor helpful o Somewhat helpful o Very helpful

When reporting pricing by labor category, how difficult is it to convert your labor categories to standardized ones such as Bureau of Labor Statistics categories?

o Difficult o Moderately Difficult o Neither easy nor difficult o Moderately Easy o Easy

GSA is considering having labor category reporting with additional data delineators to make the data more relevant to queries and market research.

Please indicate whether a data delineator is beneficial in differentiating an otherwise standardized labor category.

Very Beneficial Beneficial

Neither beneficial or not

Somewhat beneficial

Not at all beneficial

Keywords o o o o o Company

Labor Category

Name o o o o o

Short Description of the role o o o o o Years of experience o o o o o Education

(Bachelors, Masters, etc) o o o o o

Security Clearance

(from None to Top) o o o o o Required Personnel

Certifications (such as

PMP (Project Management Professional), CCRA

(Clinical

Research Associate), etc) o o o o o

Location (To the State or

Country) o o o o o Location (to the city) o o o o o

Hazard Pay or Disaster Situation (Yes/No) o o o o o Subject

Matter Expert (Greater than 15 years of experience in a niche subject area) (Yes/No) o o o o o

On-site, Off-site, Variable place of performance

If GSA provides these types of data delineators, does that make the use of standardized labor categories more appealing?

o Yes o No o Somewhat

Given that GSA will have to require some form of price reporting, indicate your tolerance for providing the following types of pricing data from. Please note, that pricing information would be anonymized if based on historical data.

Tolerable Somewhat tolerable

Neither tolerable or intolerable

Somewhat intolerable Intolerable

100% of Time and Materials /

Labor Hour Labor

Categories o o o o o

Top (Up to 10 most relevant) unique labor categories on the task order(T&M/LH) o o o o o Top (Up to 10 most relevant) unique labor categories on the task order

(FFP)

o o o o o Labor

Category rates with added data delineators

(Unburdened) o o o o o Labor

Category rates with added data delineators

(Fully Burdened) o o o o o

Firm Fixed Price by CLIN with short

CLIN

description o o o o o

A customer-facing Price List for your typical personnel on your profile

(non-negotiated)

Negotiated price lists for 8(a) contract holders in order to aid with sole source estimates

Are there any price reporting examples from other IDIQs that you would like GSA to evaluate for this contract - understanding that Best In Class criteria must be met? (Limited to 250 characters)

End of Block: IDIQ Pricing Start of Block: If OASIS Contractor

Are there any qualities / features of existing GSA MACs (e.g., OASIS, HCaTS) that you would like GSA to keep in BIC MAC? (Limited to 1000 characters)

Are there any qualities / features of existing GSA MACs (e.g., OASIS, HCaTS) that you would like GSA to remove in BIC MAC that you did not hear about in this RFI? (Limited to 1000 characters)

End of Block: If OASIS Contractor Start of Block: Closing

Is there any other feedback about the Acquisition Strategy concepts that you would like to add that was not addressed in the questions? (Limited to 1000 characters)

What questions about the BIC MAC do you have for GSA? (Limited to 1000 characters)

End of Block: Closing