E07 JOFOC.pdf

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JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVALS FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Business Analytical Capability to Inform Risk Evaluations

1. Identification of the agency and contracting activity:

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) Office of Acquisitions (AQ) located at 27130 Telegraph Road, Quantico, Virginia 22314, proposes to enter into a contract on the basis of other than full and open competition to meet business analytical research tool needs required by DCSA’s Industrial Security Directorate (ISD) (formerly, Critical Technology Protection Directorate (CTP)) and the Counterintelligence Directorate (CID). This document is a justification for other than full and open competition.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved, i.e., sole source, limited competition, establishment of a new source, etc.:

The purpose of this document is to obtain necessary approvals to expand the scope of contract no.

HS002121C0009 on a sole-source basis. The Government plans to do this by executing a modification that would increase the optional (i.e., “surge”) quantity of licenses that the Government may purchase under this contract by 427. Competition for this requirement is limited to Bloomberg Finance, L.P., as no other firm is capable of meeting the Government’s needs.

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs:

DCSA’s ISD and CID directorates require a business analytical capability able to link data, news, market research, people, companies, investors, leadership, industries, technologies, and analytics, to identify trends, connections, supply chains, ownership, relationships, interlocking corporate structures, financial viability, industry position, merger and acquisition activity, and identify risk in the commercial and financial community, for domestic and international companies to inform risk evaluations of companies in the National Industrial Security Program (NISP) and others within the defense industrial base. Bloomberg Finance L.P. is the only provider determined to have the ability to provide the depth of research required, at the scope, consistency, and quality needed by DCSA. Required capabilities include:

a) Link data, news, market research and analytics, to identify trends, connections, supply chains, ownership, leadership, interlocking corporate relationships, financial viability, industry position, merger and acquisition activity, and identify risk in the commerce and financial communities.

b) Identify corporate organizational structures.

c) Identify persons holding positions in ownership, leadership and influence.

d) Identify industries and technologies of associated targets and those relevant to defense, material, industrials, technologies, energy and utilities, healthcare, and financial.

e) Provide insight into industry trends and technological innovation.

f) Provide strategic insights to evaluate financial stability, fragility, or movement, to include, but not limited to, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, buy-outs, and divestiture details.

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g) Incorporate global private, public, academic, and government studies, publications, news, and articles into targeted results.

h) Incorporate data and analysis on Defense program spending, to include data on programs, agencies, and product lines, and independently, spending for weapon system development.

i) Track orders, backlogs, and expiring contacts on an annual, and quarterly basis for government contracts.

j) Ability to compare targeted companies to peers.

k) View targeted company’s Defense contract portfolio and ability to evaluate performance relative to expectations.

l) Vendor will provide training and assistance to the regular use of the platform for new years and subsequent to platform/capability changes.

m) Unlimited access to analysts who monitor, track, and assess trends and predict domestic and foreign stock markets; access includes the ability to contact the analysts through a private network.

n) Capability must not publicly or otherwise overtly identify DCSA or the federal government as the end user and/or location of the end user.

o) Capability must be available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and 365 days per year.

p) Users must be able to use U.S. government-furnished equipment, and/or private network as authorized by the U.S. government, to access the capability from anywhere in the continental United States aided only by an internet connection.

q) ISO 9001 certification.

r) Commercially available.

4. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

10 U.S.C. § 3204 (a)(1) authorizes agencies to contract without full and open competition when “the property or services needed by the executive agency are available from only one responsible source and no other type of property or services will satisfy the needs of the executive agency.”

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

Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community is a copyrighted product representing Bloomberg Finance L.P. intellectual property not otherwise licensed for resale, and Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community is the only product capable of meeting DCSA’s requirement as detailed under Section 3 of this document.

Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community provides DCSA uniquely insightful business intelligence in the form of news, analysis, data, and opinion, informing the Government’s decision-making regarding both privately and publicly owned companies within the NISP. As revealed by market research, no other commercially available product can match the depth and

June 2022 Page 3 of 6 breadth of information on investors, investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity, industry and investment outlooks/forecasts, C-suite portfolios, and organizational structures that DCSA requires via an ISO 9001-certified platform.

For example, Govini offers a platform that “delivers data, analytics, and insights for national security decision making.” Nevertheless, following a one-year pilot in Fiscal Year 2020 (FY 20), DCSA determined Govini’s platform focused singularly on supply chain risk and was nearly incapable of providing information on privately owned companies, which represent the majority of companies in the NISP. Exiger’s platform focuses on supply chain and third-party risk management. However, following a two-year pilot, DCSA determined that Exiger’s solution would be unsatisfactory, as it struggled to identify information of relevance on privately owned companies, demonstrated challenges with proper entity resolution, commonly provided results that were incorrectly flagged for risk, and lacked ISO 9001 certification. DCSA also researched data integrators such as RBR, General Commission, Longevity, Xcelerate, and Intelligence Analysis; however, these companies did not offer commercial off-the-shelf solutions. Each effectively proposed to build customer software largely based off of open source information, which would be an unsatisfactory and costly approach for DCSA. Likewise, DCSA explored a solution from iWorks, but this turned out to be a data integrator based upon DataViser and Novetta Entity Analytics technologies, both of which the DCSA enterprise already utilizes, and neither of which can provide sufficient information about private companies or adequately address DCSA’s present need for real-time data feeds, peer comparison, complete organizational structures, identification of owners and leadership, industry trends, and open source information of value related to potential areas of risk or reliance by DoD.

In total, DCSA researched 15 other solutions in determining that only Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community can meet this requirement. (A complete listing of the companies DCSA researched can be found under Section 8 of this document.)

6. A description of efforts to ensure that offers were solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable. Include whether or not a SAM announcement was made and what response, if any, was received, or include the exception under FAR 5.202 if not synopsizing. Describe whether any additional or similar requirements are anticipated in the future:

In support of this justification, on September 6, 2022, the Government posted a synopsis of its intent to award a sole-source contract action to Bloomberg Finance L.P. (see tab E15 in the modification file). The posting remained open for seven days. No responses were received.

Previously, on April 14, 2021, the Government posted a Sources Sought Notice (SSN) on SAM to locate potential sources that would be capable of providing the same services that DCSA acquired through the use of Bloomberg license subscriptions. The notice outlined the required capabilities and requested responses from businesses capable of meeting the requirement. Responses were received from 15 companies. The Program Management Office reviewed each of the respondent’s capability statement found that other than the response provided by Bloomberg, no other vendors were capable of meeting DCSA’s ISD and CID analytic requirements. Requirements for the capabilities identified under section 3 are highly unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.

7. The anticipated dollar value of the proposed acquisition, including options if applicable, and a determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

This proposed modification would increase the total potential contract value by an estimated $9,157,330.00. Prior to executing this modification, the Contracting Officer will perform a price

June 2022 Page 4 of 6 analysis in accordance with FAR 15.404-1(b). By leveraging DCSA’s current and past procurements of this same Bloomberg product as the basis for comparison, the Contracting Officer is confident that the anticipated cost will be fair and reasonable.

8. A description of the market research conducted and the results:

Market research included a review of 15 vendors in response to the SSN posted in April 2021. All 15 were determined ineligible or were insufficient to meet DCSA’s analytical needs (see section 10 below). The following eight were determined to be ineligible for not meeting ISO 9001 as specified in the Sources Sought Notice: (1) ARES, (2) Canda, (3) Elder Research, (4) Exiger, (5) GhostWold Industries, (6) Kharon, (7) RBR, and (8) Safetynet.

Of the remaining seven, (9) Govini was determined to not meet DCSA needs following expansive piloting of its tool by DCSA in FY2020 and performance challenges encountered during this pilot.

(10) JJR Solutions was also determined to not meet DCSA needs as it expressed intent to partner with, and implement, Govini’s unsatisfactory capability.

Of the remaining five, (11) General Commission, (12) Intelligence Analysis Inc., (13) Longevity, and

(14) Xcelerate were each determined to be service integrators seeking to provide an immature or duplicative capability. Finally, supplemental consideration was afforded to (15) iWorks as it was a past service provider to DCSA’s vetting component and reviewers sought to determine if iWorks could meet the needs of the desired capability identified in the SSN and enrich this offering through the integration of DCSA internal sources, for which it has familiarity. iWorks independently demonstrated its product to DCSA reviewers in May 2021; the review committee consisted of enterprise data analysts, data managers, and potential users. The review committee determined iWorks capability was immature and could not meet DCSA needs identified in the SSN.

Market research also included directly comparing Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community with a similar tool, SAP Application Standalone Business Analytics Professional (SAP-Business), which is provided by Carahsoft Technology Corporation and CDW.

While Carahsoft Technology and CDW provide similar services as Bloomberg, DCSA would be required to contract with both companies in order to obtain the data provided by Bloomberg, and the data is considered by DCSA to be less comprehensive than that provided by Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

Bloomberg Finance L.P. is the proprietary owner of the Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community and associated licenses. There are no resellers of Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community. Bloomberg Finance L.P. is the only provider offering the type of research and comprehensive depth of information DCSA’s ISD and CI Directorates require through one site; otherwise, the directorates would have to contract with numerous vendors to access all the data and reports required, making it prohibitive to modify requirements or seek full and open competition.

Bloomberg Finance L.P. is the incumbent service provider and its Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community licenses have been utilized by both ISD and CID for over six years (25 total licenses: ISD-16; CID-9). Both directorates have experienced significant growth in support of the facility clearance process requiring an increase to Bloomberg Professional Services for the Intelligence Community licenses. The current contract will expire on September 28, 2022; however, includes option years through September 28, 2025.

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10. A listing of any sources that expressed a written interest in the acquisition:

No sources expressed interest in this specific action in response to the Government’s synopsis posted on September 6, 2022. Fifteen vendors responded to the SSN posted in April 2021;

however, all were determined ineligible or proposed solutions from each were insufficient to meet DCSA ISD and CID needs. Responses to the SSN were received and reviewed from:

ARES Canda Elder Research Exiger JJR Solutions Kharon RBR Safetynet Longevity Govini Xcelerate iWorks General Commission

GhostWold Industries

Intelligence Analysis, Inc.

See section 8 of this document for more information on the Government’s analysis of these firms’ solutions.

11. A statement of any actions the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition, if subsequent acquisitions are anticipated:

While other tools have a different or less complete focus than Bloomberg, in the future DCSA may improve its outcomes through the use of data lakes associated with its key research tools and the sharing of this information with other federal government users having similar data needs. This would potentially enable the broad sharing of resources and expenses without being hamstrung to individual license needs, allow agencies to selectively identify the information most valuable to them, and create layers of data filters to push the most meaningful data to their independent user groups. The result would be focused, prioritized, scaled, and efficient data management without the need for additional manpower. However, this solution would require sustained collaboration and partnerships with other federal agencies and departments, and for DCSA to demonstrate the technical competence and fortitude to develop and manage big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence systems.

At present, ISD’s Systems Management Branch is working closely with DCSA’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), Program Executive Office (PEO), and Chief Strategy Office (CSO) to identify opportunities to build an internal foundational system to then start ingesting desired content from targeted resources. However, the progress of this effort has been repeatedly slowed due to a lack of clear requirements, insufficient funding, a lack of identified sources (agnostic of vendor/owner) capable of delivering the desired results for each internal mission area, a general unwillingness by resource providers to provide a pipeline of data outside of individual licenses, insufficient staffing, and historical prioritization of other projects.

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Certification: Justification And Approvals For Other Than Full And Open Competition

Business Analytical Capability to Inform Risk Evaluations

Program Official:

I certify that the facts and representations under my cognizance, which are included in this justification and which form a basis for this justification, are complete and accurate.

X Program Official

Program Senior Official (or designee):

I certify that the facts and representations under my cognizance, which are included in this justification and which form a basis for this justification, are complete and accurate.

X Program Senior Official (or designee):

Contracting Officer:

I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

X Contracting Officer

Activity Advocate for Competition:

I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

X Activity Advocate for Competition