Gartner Fedlink EFO-2022-010 Rev7 - signed.pdf

EFO-2022-010

Rev.: 2/2021

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC)

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity

Description of the action being approved: This justification documents the basis for issuing an order under the Library of Congress FEDLINK Contract LCFDL21D0001using an exception to the Fair Opportunity process.

Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs: This action is a firm-fixed price order for Gartner Memberships for Corporate Leadership Council Classic, Learning & Development Leadership Council Classic, Recruiting Leadership Council Classic, Gartner for Chief Human Resource Officers Team Leaders access, and Gartner for Chief Human Resource Officers Team Advisors access. The total estimated price of the proposed order is and the estimated period of performance is 06/01/2022 through 05/31/2023.

Identification of Exception to Fair Opportunity:

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(A), The agency need for the supplies or services is so urgent that providing a fair opportunity would result in unacceptable delays.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C), The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(D), It is necessary to place an order to satisfy a minimum guarantee.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(E), For orders exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold a statute expressly authorizes or requires that the purchase be made from a specified source.

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(F) In accordance with section 1331 of Public Law 111-240 (15 U.S.C. 644(r)), contracting officers may, at their discretion, set aside orders for any of the small business concerns identified in 19.000(a)(3). When setting aside orders for small business concerns, the specific small business program eligibility requirements identified in part 19 apply.

Supporting Rationale:

NASA Headquarters requires Gartner Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) and Executive

Partner/Advisor Seat offerings to enable senior HR executives and their teams to drive corporate performance through Gartner’s unique combination of best-practice research and toolkits along with dedicated advisory services that is not available through any comparable vendors. NASA’s requirement includes subscriptions from Gartner’s Corporate Leadership Council and Learning and Development Leadership Council product lines.

The Corporate Leadership Council offerings enable senior HR executives and their teams to drive corporate performance by shaping our preparedness for the talent challenges of the future. NASA leaders and managers utilize this subscription to have exactly the information and advisory support they need to manage the employee life cycle from beginning to end and efficiently execute benchmarking performance against Gartner’s metrics. Gartner is the leading member-based advisory company due to its knowledge base drawn from thousands of its member companies. NASA can leverage the Corporate Leadership Council subscriptions along with NASA’s advanced research methodologies and human capital analytics to enable senior leaders and their teams with insight and actionable solutions to transform operations.

The Learning and Development Leadership Council provides more specific and in-depth access to executives and leaders in industry and government specifically around Learning and Leadership Development. This subscription provides all NASA employees access to insight, advice, and actionable resources developed around the most pressing HR challenges, and allows NASA to benchmark against the latest industry data. Membership also grants NASA access to exclusive meetings and conferences specific to the Recruiting Leadership Council.

Other research tools available in the industry via memberships, websites, or publications related to recruitment and other essential topics within the discipline are not comparable to the Learning and Development Leadership Council subscriptions, due Gartner’s ability to leverage its industry benchmarking and in-depth research to build its webinars on cutting edge topics (e.g., Hybrid Work, Digital Transformation) that are not available from other vendors.

For example, NASA recently leveraged Gartner’s proprietary Onboarding Diagnostic & Ownership worksheet to quickly identify key indicators of onboarding weakness to build a strong business case for action aligned with our critical recruitment and talent gaps. This subscription also provides credits towards Gartner conferences related to HR that provides thousands of dollars in cost saving.

Gartner provides NASA with industry-leading strategic research, advisory services, conferences and learning, tools, surveys, industry networking, and additional value indispensable to OCHCO’s talent strategy and operations and further leveraged in other NASA offices. The enterprise licensing model makes this membership available to every NASA employee, and offers utilization reports with robust value. Other vendors do not approximate this type of subscription or offer the unique combination of advisory and consulting services backed by such a comprehensive research base and benchmarking data.

and are thus not comparable For example, the Executive Partner Seat provides unlimited annual access to a dedicated expert advisor with in-depth knowledge of the Executive’s unique management challenges. Over the past year, this partner not only provided ongoing advisory services, but also attended Senior Executive retreats, and was able to facilitate many workshops and meetings to address pressing human capital transformation efforts. Ongoing advisory services have been crucial for the breadth and depth of the Mission: OCHCO Transformation effort and will be needed over the next year with the development of the future operating model. No other subscription can provide this type of support, and issuing awards for ad-hoc strategic consultations with other vendors may cost up to $25K for two days with an advisor.

NASA has cultivated utilization of the membership among the HR workforce.Changing to another subscription would require extensive re-orientation, training, and IT labor hour resources web integration if another type of service is used. For example, NASA internal web pages and Microsoft Teams communities for various initiatives (e.g., Future of Work) and programs (e.g., employee and leadership development, HRBP Learning Library) have been build around available Gartner resources and would require extensive revision and loss of established NASA employee familiarity with Gartner research and tools if this subscription were not renewed. In addition, NASA uses the Gartner diagnostic tools, which would be purchased individually as consulting services at higher costs.

Determination that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The Contracting Officer’s signature on this document indicates that the Contracting Officer has determined that the anticipated cost to the government will be fair and reasonable. Prior to execution of the contractual instrument, a price analysis will be performed. The price analysis will ensure that the final agreed-to price for the contract action is fair and reasonable. The price analysis will include a comparison to publicly available list pricing, as well as a comparison to historical prices ordered by NASA.

Other Facts:

N/A

A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made:

The CO will continue to examine the market in the future for alternative solutions or new sources before executing any subsequent acquisitions for the same requirements.

NSSC/NASA Headquarters

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

SIGNATURE PAGE

I certify that the requirements and technical data contained herein, and which form a basis for this justification are accurate and complete.

Dianne L. Schneider Dianne Schneider Technical Representative

I hereby certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Based on the information provided in this justification, and as the approving official, I have determined that the exception at FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B) applies to the order.

Desiree Vogt Contracting Officer

Desiree Vogt

Digitally signed by Desiree Vogt Date: 2022.06.02 10:38:38 -05'00'