Sec_E_00_Solicitation_Provisions-Contents.doc

Solicitation #CPN-B-CZ001-1

SECTION E

INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE/

SOLICITATION PROVISIONS

The contract type is Firm Fixed Price (FFP)

This is a firm fixed-priced, best value, non severable service requirement. This requirement is for a turn key solution that cannot feasibly be subdivided.

Quotes will be evaluated based upon the following criteria:

Technical Factors

Price

The Government will make award to the responsible vendor(s) whose offer conforms to the RFQ and is most advantageous to the Government, price and technical factors listed below are considered. Technical factors carry a higher weight than price. As submissions become more equal in their technical merit, the evaluation of price becomes more important. GSA will award on a Best Value basis. Award will be made based on best value analysis using criteria in the following order of importance: Experience on similar projects, Past Performance and Proposed production schedule.

STEP 1

Evaluate all non-price factors for each quote. Technical Evaluation (non-price) factors are more important than price. Award will be made based on a best value analysis using the following criteria: Technical Solution, Experience, and Past Performance combined.

Technical Solution is more important than Experience and Past Performance are equal in weight. All non-price/cost factors taken together are more important than price/cost. However, as differences in non-price/cost factors become less significant, price will become increasingly more important.

Therefore, cost/price is not expected to be the controlling factor in the selection of an offeror; however, the degree of importance of cost/price as a factor could become greater depending upon the equality of the offers for other factors evaluated. When competing offers are determined to be substantially equal after evaluation of all non-cost/price factors, the cost/price factors could become the controlling factor.

A. Technical Solution:

In rating this factor, the Government will evaluate the offeror’s proposed technical solution. Proposals will be evaluated as a measure of the Government’s confidence in the offeror’s ability to successfully complete the total statement of work, including objectives, based on the offeror’s proposed technical solution and includes evaluating any and all, but not limited to, the offeror’s proposed technical designs, plans, products, methods of working and warranties. The Technical Solution factor is generally comprised of the following 10 sub-factors. Sub-factor are of equal weight:

A1. Deliverability rate comparison with other vendors. External certification such as ReturnPath SenderScores will be evaluated more favorably.

A2. Email creation tool will be evaluated for ease of use.

A3. Dedupping and matching algorithms will be evaluated for comprehensiveness and flexibility.

A4. The extensiveness of data hygiene tools

A5. Flexibility of suppression features.

A6. Robustness of APIs and Integration features.

A7. Internal integrations for speed and ease of use within the services.

A8. Prebuilt configurations to Salesforce.com will be evaluated more favorably.

A9. Current security status related to time and effort in meeting government requirement.

A10. Extensiveness of Systems Technical Support with online content, email and phone support.

B. Experience

In rating this factor, the Government will evaluate the offeror’s comparable experience. This factor will be evaluated as a measure of the Government’s confidence in the offeror’s ability to successfully complete the RFQ task based on the offeror’s experience with comparable tasks/projects.

General Experience. Offerors shall submit documentation on three (3) past or current contracts/Task/Delivery/Orders or commercial arrangements with clients; which have accomplished the same or similar objectives and requirements as specified in this Statement of Work.

Offeror’s documentation of experience shall clearly indicate how and to what extent it relates to the objectives and specific requirements of this statement or work; and provide specific indications of similar attributes, characteristics, objectives and requirements.

The offeror's shall furnish the contract number, contract type, dollar value, number of units deployed/supported, date of award, performance period, and a brief narrative describing the nature and complexity of the work, as well as their experience’s relatedness to the objectives and requirements of this Statement of Work. The offeror's shall also describe their role in the project and its relevance to objectives and requirements of this solicitation.

C. Past Performance.

In rating this factor, the Government will evaluate the offeror’s past performance with comparable task orders and/or projects. This factor will be evaluated as a measure of the Government’s confidence in the offeror’s ability to successfully complete the RFQ task based on past performance of comparable tasks/projects. The past performance factor has two (2) subfactors, as indicated below.

In evaluating past performance, the Government will review “how well the offeror has performed” on comparable projects. The factor evaluation shall be based on: 1) past performance information furnished by the offeror in its proposal/quote response (Sub factor 1); as well as information provided directly to the government in the Past Performance Questionnaire provided (Sub factor 2). Greater weight shall be given to information received from the Past Performance Questionnaire’s.

Sub factor 1: Past Performance.

Offerors must submit documentation of three (3) past performance Task/Delivery orders/ or commercial arrangements with clients (completed within the past 36 months) or current contracts/Task/Delivery orders/or commercial arrangements with clients with comparable requirements to the solicited Task/Delivery. If the offeror submits more than three (3) references then the Government will only review and consider the first three questionnaires received. Past performance information must include a point of contact (name, company name, phone number, fax number and email address), contract/Task/Delivery number, contract type, dollar value, date of award, performance period, and a brief narrative describing the nature and complexity of the work. The offeror shall also describe their role in the project and its relevance to the solicited Task/Delivery.

If an offeror has no relevant experience for similar services, the offeror must provide an accessible point of contact, point of contact information, for current contracts that reflect the offeror’s normal business endeavors within the last two years.

Sub factor 2: Past Performance Questionnaire

The offeror shall identify and provide the past performance questionnaire to three clients with whom the offeror has performed on similar size and scope task orders/ projects.

The offeror shall provide the attached Past Performance Questionnaire (see Attachment I) to the primary “Point of Contact” for the each project referenced. The “Point of Contact” shall complete the Past Performance Questionnaire. The “Point of Contact” shall then submit the Past Performance Questionnaire directly to the Contracting Officer at Nathan.jackson@gsa.gov. Questionnaires shall be due no later than February 20, 2013 by 12:00 pm, CST and will only be accepted via email. The submission of the questionnaire must come directly to GSA from the “Point of Contact” for the referenced project. Past Performance Questionnaires received directly from the Offeror shall not be considered. The Government reserves the right to contact each “Point of Contact” or other individuals related to the referenced projects to obtain additional or clarifying past performance information.

STEP 2

Evaluate price reasonableness of all price quotes, and then rank by total evaluated price. The price quote will be evaluated separately. The contractor price quote shall include the items listed below. Failure to comply with all pricing requirements listed below will render the price quote non-responsive.

1. Pricing. For evaluation purposes, the contractor price quote shall identify the labor hours, labor category, and skill level, labor rates. Contractors are encouraged to provide price discounts. Primary place of performance will be Government site.

(a) Performance Periods. The contractor price quote shall include a firm fixed price for this task order defined in Section 3.0 with a base performance period and each option year identified in the following list. The Government is under no obligation to exercise the option years.

Date

2. Incremental funding: The Government does not anticipate that incremental funding will be required for the base or option periods.

STEP 3

The contracting officer may limit the number of quotes in the competitive range to the greatest number that will permit an efficient competition among the most highly rated quotes.

Step 4

Technical – Price Trade-off - Perform and document an integrated best value assessment of the evaluated offerors. This step identifies the process for the Technical Price Trade-Off. The technical score is significantly more important than price. Technical and Price offers will be evaluated separately. The respective offeror’s technical scores will be ranked and then assessed against the total price using a trade-off approach based on the relative risks and benefits of the individual offers. This trade-off will identify the best value offer to the Government. When making these trade-offs, the technical will be considered significantly more important than price. The trade-off approach is explained as follows:

The offer (A) with the highest technical score/least risk will be considered first when making the best value determination. If the offer (A) with the highest technical score does not also have the lowest proposed price, the Government will compare it with the second highest technical score (B), provided it (B) has a lower proposed price than offer (A). The Government will determine if the higher technical score between these two offers is worth the additional price offered by (A). If yes, the Government will proceed to compare offer A with the third highest technical offer (C) and perform the same analysis [comparing A to C]. This process will be repeated [A to D, A to E, etc.] with each offer unless an offer with a lesser price is found whose technical score justifies the price differential between offers. If none are found, the contractor offering the highest technical score will receive the task order award. If at any time an offer is found to have a technical score determined acceptable at a lower cost, the Government will continue the analysis in the same manner using the better valued offer in the equation (in place of A) to make the comparisons [e.g., B to C, B to D, etc.]

The Government may use data provided by the offeror in its proposal as well as data obtained from other sources. While the Government may elect to consider data and information obtained from other sources (e.g. user evaluation of the service and past performance), the burden of providing thorough and complete information rests with the offeror.

Technical will be evaluated both on written proposal as well as GSA evaluation of a 4-week free trial period of the recommended solution.

The contracting officer may limit the number of quotes in the competitive range to the greatest number that will permit an efficient competition among the most highly rated quotes.

Any service delivered under this contract, for which a price is not specifically identified by the offeror, shall be considered to be included in the price of another item or provided at no cost to the Government. However, at the discretion of the Contracting Officer, the contract may be amended to add CLIN’s to properly deliver a product or service if there has been an omission.

Source Selection Procedures

This procurement is conducted IAW FAR Part 8.405-3. There is no formal source selection. However, the Government will evaluate the response based on the evaluation criteria identified in the RFQ. This will be a best value procurement. The Government intends to award a task order without discussions if deemed in its best interest. The evaluation process will assess technical responses, rank the proposals by price and assess relative risks.

The award will be based on a best value determination. The FAR requires that the government evaluate competing quotes based solely on the factors described in the instruction to offerors. The Instructions to Offerors and Description of Evaluation Factors will be utilized for this commercial acquisition.