Human_Capital_Analytic_RFI.pdf

ARMY & AIR FORCE EXCHANGE SERVICE

P.O.BOX 660202

Dallas, Texas 75266-0202 214-312-2011

Dear Sir or Madam, 13 November 2013

The Exchange, formally known as the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) is requesting information from the industry regarding their interest in submitting a proposal for an Enterprise-wide Human Capital Analytics System for use by approximately 6,500 Exchange managers worldwide.

Analytics will provide Human Resources and Managers with data management and statistical analysis capabilities for improved reporting and measurement. It will provide predictive and actionable information enabling managers to make well-informed business decisions. A successful analytics system will be able to easily integrate with a number of systems utilized by the Exchange.

The Exchange is a joint non-appropriated fund instrumentality of the Department of Defense (DoD) with a dual mission to provide quality merchandise and services to its customers at competitively low prices and generate earnings which provide dividends to support Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) programs. In addition to strengthening troops’ quality of life, the Exchange saves authorized shoppers money with an average overall savings of 20 percent compared to the competition. Customers can enjoy exchange benefits in many ways, with the greatest value being the Exchange’s pledge “We Go Where You Go.”

When military members deploy to remote locations around the world, the Exchange is right there with them, offering products and services to bring Soldiers and Airmen a taste of home. The Exchange also supports deployed troops with programs such as “Gifts from the Homefront” and “Help Our Troops Call Home.” These programs allow any American to show support for those fighting for freedom by sending gift certificates or prepaid phone cards to deployed troops.

The Exchange is the 43rd largest retail organization in the U.S., with annual revenue of $10.3B and employing more than 40,000 civilian and military personnel. The Exchange is a multi-channel retailer, offering products to authorized customers via retail stores, catalog and online. The Exchange operates retail and convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants, theaters, vending and other businesses on military installations in all 50 states, five U.S. territories and more than 30 countries. More than 18 million items are available through the Exchange Online Store and Exchange Online Mall with an average savings of 10-20 percent. The Exchange supports an extremely mobile customer base. The internet provides the ability to extend Exchange benefit to customers worldwide, regardless of where they are located.

Roughly two-thirds of the Exchanges’ earnings are paid to MWR programs. In the past 10 years, $2.4 billion has been contributed by the Exchange to military MWR programs to spend on quality of life improvements, including youth services, Armed Forces Recreation Centers, arts and crafts, aquatic centers, post functions and golf courses.

In addition to funding MWR programs, the Exchange earnings are used to build new stores or renovate existing facilities. Funds to build these new or replacement facilities come entirely from the sale of merchandise and services.

The objective and desired requirements are outlined in attachment 1. Your responses may be used to further evaluate and/or refine our requirements.

If you are interested in this potential upcoming procurement, please provide:

1. Responses to the desired requirements and how you meet these.

2. Please provide a brief summary of your company including:

a. How long you have been providing this technology?

b. List of major customers using this technology.

3. Is your company interested in receiving our Request For Proposal (RFP) should we issue one for this effort? If so, please provide contact information for your company.

Please feel free to add any additional information that the Exchange needs to consider for an Human Capital Analytics solution. Your responses may be used to further evaluate and/or refine our requirement.

Again, this is a Request for Information only. The Exchange is not seeking a firm price quote. However, the Exchange does want to understand how the industry prices these solutions.

Responses to this RFI are required by close of business 29 Nov 2013 via email to:

burkhardts@aafes.com. The solicitation will be issued only to those companies that respond to this request.

Sincerely Attachment 1: Human Capital Analytics

Requirements

///signed/// Sarah Burkhardt Contracting Officer

Attachment 1 Request for Information (RFI)—Human Capital Analytics System

Current Requirement:

The purpose of this initiative is to deliver an enterprise-wide Human Capital Analytics System to all managers. The Analytics solution will provide a full continuum of reporting, predictive modeling and advanced analytics methods to ensure our management workforce has the tools and information needed to make effective business decisions about the workforce. It will provide administrative support in the ability to run ad hoc reports, deliver reports on demand and dashboard functionality to quickly view information.

The intent of this RFI is to collect information from potential vendors regarding each company’s ability to meet the needs of the Exchange. All solicited responses to the RFI will be used for informational purposes, to better plan for creating an RFP. All vendors are requested to provide a solution that meets each of the listed requirements.

Objective:

Associates are our most important asset. Implementation of Human Capital Analytics software that utilizes predictive modeling and behavioral information enables managers to make proactive human capital management decisions in order to yield optimal results. Insight gained from an Analytics software helps drive higher productivity, retain the best performers, mobilize the workforce in support of strategic objectives, and improve their ability to respond to rapidly changing environments. Our current HR databases are built in a variety of platforms and are not interconnected, making it difficult to retrieve reports, statistics and information in a timely manner. Current reporting and analysis are conducted through various systems by using Microsoft Access and Excel. The lack of integration between the systems and reporting tools results in an inefficient method for measuring and reporting results.

Our goals for a new Human Capital Analytics system are:

Standardization of human capital metrics

Ease of administration and automation – administration, management and use of software is simple for the end users

Predictive Modeling Capability

Succession Planning Functionality

Organizational Chart Capability

Canned reports, ability to build reports and deliver auto-generated reports

Ability to access reports through mobile device (Smartphone, iPads, Tablets, etc…)

Requirements:

Please respond to the questions on the attached Excel spreadsheet using the format provided.

HUMAN CAPITAL ANALYTICS

RFI REQUIREMENTS

Please provide responses in column D.

Response

a. Which data sources do you integrate with?

b. Can data sources and schema be easily changed?

c.

Does the solution offer a wide variety of integration including web services and messaging?

d.

Does the solution include tools to support extraction, transformation and load processes for data load?

e. Can import processes be automated, including rules to test for exceptions?

f. How can I export data to other analytic tools such as Excel?

g.

How do I import the initial data to get started? How does this differentiate from an incremental data load once the tool is operational?

h. Do I own and control my data differently based on how the tool is hosting?

i What is the average time to extract 100,000 lines and 1 Mil lines of three complexity levels processed data? (simple, medium, complex)

a. Please order the solution types from lowest to highest price?

b. How is the solution implemented for clients?

c. What can I expect in the way of upgrades (Timing, challenges, risks)?

a. What is the average implementation timeline?

b. Is implementation of solution considered simple or complex?

c.

Is there an additional cost for implementation/configuration. If so, how is it calculated?

d. Can a third party provide configuration/implementation services?

e. Who are your software partners and integrators?

a What should a client look for in a Human Capital Analytics software consultant?

b.

Do you provide a thorough analysis of all aspects of the current system

(hardware/software)?

c. If so, when, and which clients?

d. What services did you provide?

a.

What kind of Support Level Agreement (SLA) do you offer? What is included and what would be included at additional cost? (e.g. Response time, Access method, VPN, Remote Desktop, WebEx, etc.)

b. How are you rated by customers? Feedback?

c. What are the support limitations?

d.

How far will you go to help me solve my technical problems and answer questions from my business users?

e.

What are the typical SLA support types and responses rates (Bronze, Silver, Gold) you offer retail customers our size ($10.3B >40K employees)?

f.

Do you have a support knowledge base/community forum or applications that are shared by customers?

Do you provide consultation regarding integration with various Human Resource

Management Systems?

SUPPORT

Type of Support (options, pricing, technical or business)

How extensive are your solution integrations features?

Have you acted as consultant to other retail firms to help procure Human Capital

Analytics software?

Do you provide implementation/configuration services?

Question

Does your company have a General Services Administration (GSA) contract?

Do you currently have any other Government contracts? With whom?

Who are some of your customers? (e.g. Barney's, Macys, Federated, etc.)

What are the standard features and key benefits offered with your solution?

What additional features may be purchased and what advantages do these offer?

What is your experience with integrating your system with a customer's in-house database and multiple platforms?

Describe what your current customers are using your system to do---advanced analysis, predictive modeling, or other functions?

Explain how the administrator is able to configure and update content within the system.

What is your solution architecture/type?

Please provide responses in column D.

ResponseQuestion a.

What type of support do you typically offer during the first two months after

"go live"?

b.

How many employees are needed during implementation and what skill sets must they possess?

c.

Do you provide a training package to the client that can be used to train new users of the solution?

d.

For a company of our size, how many Exchange employees are needed for operating the solution after go-live ?

a.

Does your solution have the ability to assign user functions and levels of access?

b. Does you solution have the ability to grant access in real time?

19 What type of canned reports do you offer?

20 What are the limitations of your ad-hoc reporting?

a. Licensing Fee (dependent on users? Dependent on company size?

b. The cost if the software is purchased, installed and managed in-house.

c. Hosted solution.

d. Flat fees or transaction fees.

e. Annual Support and Maintenance.

f. Implementation fees.

g. Other costs (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Extensions).

h.

In addition to regular pricing, provide cost of a host based solution and service levels.

Please describe user authentication requirements.

Does your analytics software contain internal security controls for processing and storage of PII? Please describe.

Please describe security patching cycles for your software.

If externally-hosted systems are used to transmit, store or process sensitive data, please describe the method and level of encryption used by your software and systems to secure the data while in transit.

If data is externally-hosted, are your systems periodically scanned and tested for vulnerabilities. If so, please describe the method and frequency of scanning and testing.

PRICING

Please respond to the following questions regarding pricing, for budgetary purposes only. In your response, please provide industry or list prices.

What are the various security measures that should be considered in a Human

Capital Analytics software? What does your software utilize?

Does your analytics software have role-based security capability?

How many concurrent users can be supported by your Human Capital Analytics software?

Provide any ROI information or success stories you have from clients that purchased your Human Capital Analytics software who have realized positive operational results in the years since implementation.

REPORTING

Is your system capable of delivering auto-generated reports?

Are you able to pull in industry data that allows organizations to benchmark their information?

Does your analytics software come with prebuilt metrics in the system and dashboard functionality?

Do the reports have functionality similar to Excel pivot tables or Hyperion/Cognos cubes?

SECURITY

How is online security managed?

Do you have both an enterprise license and individual user license available? Are the individual licenses named or concurrent?

Would you provide a dedicated full-time account manager to work with the

Exchange Project Team on Human Capital Analytics software development and implementation, from start of project to "go live" date?

USERS

If internal role-based security is included, please provide a general description of provisioning/de-provisioning capabilities.

Please provide responses in column D.

ResponseQuestion i.

Average additional costs borne by other users of your software (i.e. typical staff additions, peripheral hardware and software needed to support the tool, etc).

j.

If we have our own ETL package (SSIS or Informatica) what effect does that have on pricing for 1) licensing, 2) implementation, and 3) support.

If so, how long has your software utilized predictive modeling capability to forecast human capital data?

Does your product have single sign-on option for users?

What other questions do you think we should ask if we decide to send out another

RFI or RFP in the future?

Is your analytics software compatible with smartphone and tablet devices?

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

Do you provide intelligence on current industry conditions and near term and long term developments? What does your 5 year roadmap look like for your Analytics solution?

Describe your general process in fulfilling an order for one of these systems.

What do you offer that we might not have or that other firms might not offer?

Please provide a list of your customer contacts that use your product.

Does your analytics software have predictive modeling capability?

What feature(s) makes your product superior to the competition?

Do you provide intelligence on current Business Issues/Solutions?

Do you provide intelligence on current Technical Issues/Solutions?