ID15200007 AR 2020-12-23 signed.pdf

Federal Acquisition Service

Great Lakes Region

Award Recommendation and Concurrence

FOR THE PURCHASE OF

Dun & Bradstreet Subscription Services

A procurement by the

U.S. General Services Administration on behalf of

GSA Integrated Award Environment

Solicitation Number: GSA ITSS # ID15200007 Contract Number: 47QCDA21C0001

This requirement was solicited as a sole source contract

NAICS 561450 – Credit Bureaus Product Service Code (PSC) – R611-Support-Administrative: Credit Reporting

The purpose of this memorandum is to synopsize the history of this acquisition and support an award recommendation of the subject requirement.

<b>Project Title: </b> Dun and Bradstreet Subscription Services <b>Contract Solicitation Number: </b> ID15200007, 47QDCA20K0007 <b>Contract Type: </b> Firm Fixed Price <b>Funding Reference: </b> QP0024391 <b>Requiring Activity:</b> GSA, Integrated Award Environment <b>Contractor: </b> Dun and Bradstreet, Inc.

<b>Contract Number: </b> 47QDCA21C0001 <b>NAICS Code: </b> 561450-Credit Bureaus <b>Product Service Code:</b> R611-Support-Administrative: Credit Reporting <b>Inherently Governmental Functions Code: </b> Other Functions <b>Solicitation Release Date / Number of Respondents: </b> 16 December 2020 / 1 <b>Codes: </b> Contracting Office: 47QDCA, Funding Agency: 4732, Funding Office: 47QDCA

DocuSign Envelope ID: 5DE1B465-37EE-4311-A14B-D0882E330E9C

Solicitation ITSS #ID15200007 Award Recommendation

GENERAL INFORMATION

Item or Service being procured: The scope of this effort is to provide continuation of Dun & Bradstreet Subscription Services for the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number, which currently serves as the government-wide “unique entity identifier”, used to identify a specific commercial, nonprofit, or Government entity, and associated unique entity validation services. This contract is necessary so that the government can transition the System for Award Management’s (SAM) entity validation services from the current Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) subscription services to the new government owned Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) which is currently in development and anticipated to be implemented on a government-wide basis.

The current contract with Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. expires on December 29, 2020. These services are mission critical as the entity validation services satisfy business and technical objectives of the Government. Lack of quality support or a break in service due to provider issues could nearly shut down government contracting. Such breakdown in support would affect 30,000 federal and civilian customers monthly. Without this support both the government and civilian side of federal procurement will have issues registering as an entity and conducting government business.

Requiring Activity: These services are being acquired in support of the GSA Office of Systems Management: Integrated Award Environment.

GSA ACQUISITION BACKGROUND

Acquisition Planning: This acquisition is supported by an Acquisition Plan, that was approved by the contract review board and GSA Region 5 Regional Commissioner on 16 December, 2020.

Legal and Contract Review Board Review: A legal and a Contract Review Board pre-solicitation and pre-award contract review of this acquisition were performed. The documents were determined to be legally sufficient and in compliance with acquisition policy and regulations.

Findings and Determination: This action is supported by the following justifications.

1. Other Than Full and Open Competition determination dated 14 December, 2020, signed by the GSA Senior Procurement Executive.

2. Options determination dated 13 November, 2020. This contract includes a base period and (2) two, six-month option periods.

Other Supporting Documents: A GSA Small Business Analysis Record (GSA Form 2689) was signed and approved by the Small Business Administration and GSA Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization on 16 and 18 December 2020, respectively. No other supporting documents are currently required.

Funding: Funds for the base period have been budgeted and the first increment of funding will be provided by GSA IAE prior to award. Initial funding is $30,826,293.00.

Estimated Period of Performance:

● Base Period: December 30, 2020 to April 30, 2022

● Option Period 1: May 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022

● Option Period 2: November 1, 2022 to April 30, 2023

SOLICITATION AND EVALUATION

Solicitation: This requirement was solicited through ITSS to Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.

Solicitation Release Date: A draft of the solicitation was released on 25 November 2020 via email to Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. This was done due to the quick turnaround required on this contract and allowed the Contractor to get a start on the proposal. Dun & Bradstreet came back with two separate sets of questions which were answered as Amendments 1 & 2. On 16 December 2020, the official final solicitation was released via ITSS. The solicitation announcement and amendments are summarized as follows:

Solicitation Draft Release: 25 November 2020. RFQ ID15200007

Amendment 01: 09 December 2020. Provided answers to vendor

Questions First round 1-6.

Amendment 02: 10 December 2020. Provided answers to vendor Questions Second round 1-2.

Solicitation Final/Official Release: 16 December 2020. RFQ ID15200007

Proposal Due Date: Proposals were due on 18 December 2020.

Proposals Received: The proposal was received on or before the due date through the GSA web-based procurement portal, Information Technology Solutions Shop (ITSS). One proposal was received from Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.

Source Selection Organization:

The proposal was reviewed by the following individuals.

Kristen Buzby, Project Manager, GSA, OSM Evaluator (703) 605-9354

Zack Sionakides, Program Manager, GSA, IAE Evaluator (202) 412-0231

CJ Densmore, Government Technical Program Manager, GSA, IAE Evaluator (202) 702-1640

Robert Owoyele, COR, GSA, IAE Evaluator (202) 657-9936

Uma Jayachandran, Director, Governmentwide Acquisition Operations Division, GSA, IAE Evaluator (202) 219-0029

Meredith Whitehead, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, GSA, IAE Evaluator (571) 319-7481

Amanda Foster, Contracting Officer, (advisory only) 5QZAC, GSA, amanda.foster@gsa.gov (217 / 492-5021)

Eben Greybourne, Contracting Officer, (advisory only) 5QZAC, GSA, eben.greybourne@gsa.gov (312 / 886-3811)

Basis for Solicitation, Proposal Evaluation, and Contract Award; For this acquisition the Government determined that it would solicit, evaluate the proposal, and make a single, sole-source contract award pursuant to FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(i)(B)(a)(2)(i)(B) Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements offering a service not otherwise available to the Government. This Sole Source Contract was awarded pursuant to the authority 41 United States Code (U.S.C.) 3304(a)(1) as implemented by FAR 6.302-1.

A summary of the results of the evaluation is provided as follows:

Proposal Technical Evaluation: The proposal was evaluated for conformity with the solicitation.

D&B proposed their subscription services as currently being performed, transition-out services, and eleven other optional services that it thought GSA might be interested in, as listed below.

The GSA review team determined that only the existing subscription services and the transition-out services would be required (items #1 and #13 below). They also determined that an $82,810.00 portion of the Integration Manager costs that are currently included in the subscription services, be broken out and provided as an optional item, to be exercised by the government should those additional services be required. The government felt that it no longer needed this service. This issue was subsequently discussed and resolved, resulting in a price reduction to the government. (See the discussion paragraph, below)

1 D&B Subscription Services – Existing Toolkit with direct access 2 Customer Support Identity Security – up to 300,000 resolutions 3 ERP Portal – GSA configuration 4 Customer Support Identity Security – additional 5 Customer Support Identity Security: IVAL 6 ISST Help Desk Platform 7 DNBI Subscription (RUM) – up to 300,000 usage 8 Investigative Research Services, Supply Chain – GSA only 9 Investigative Research Services, Supply Chain – government-wide 10 Investigative Research Services, Fraud – GSA only 11 Investigative Research Services, Fraud – government-wide 12 Professional Services Solution Engineer 13 Transition-out Services

Lastly, D&B took exception to GSA’s updated security requirement, as listed in the statement of work. D&B is currently working under security requirements that were in place when their current contract was awarded. The technical team referred this item to the GSA IT Security Office for resolution.

mailto:amanda.foster@gsa.gov mailto:eben.greybourne@gsa.gov

Proposal Price Evaluation: The D&B price proposal included the fixed price subscription service amount, fixed price transition-out amount, and fixed priced amounts for the eleven (11) other optional items.

These prices are summarized as follows:

Base Period (16 months) D&B Subscription Service $31,883,894.00 Transition-out Service $ 1,000,000.00 Other optional services $ 6,864,392.00 Total $39,748,286.00

Option 1 (6 months) D&B Subscription Service $17,470,200.00 Other optional services $ 3,864,392.00 Total $22,334,592.00

Option 2 (6 months) D&B Subscription Service $17,420,200.00 Other optional services $ 3,864,392.00 Total $22,284,592.00

Since the government does not wish to purchase any of the optional items the proposed potential contract amount would be as follows:

Base Period D&B Subscription Service $31,883,894.00 Transition-out Service $ 1,000,000.00 Option 1 D&B Subscription Service $17,470,200.00 Option 2 D&B Subscription Service $17,420,200.00 Total Potential Fixed Price $67,774,294.00

The price proposed for the base period subscription service is considered to be fair and reasonable considering that it is in line with all past D&B pricing. For example, for the period of performance from 30 December 2019 through 29 December 2020, D&B’s price was $1,981,411.88 per month. D&B’s proposed base quantity price for this contract is $1,997,919.00 per month or a 0.83% increase. This increase is well within a nominal 2% to 3% cost of living increase most frequently granted to government contractors. The proposed price is therefore considered to be fair and reasonable.

The price proposed for each of the six month option periods is $2,911,700.00 per month. This is a 46.95% increase over this past year’s annual monthly prices. D&B explained that the higher price has resulted from the shorter performance period, and that if GSA were to purchase a 12 month option, rather than two six-month options, the price would be in line with that offered for the base period of this contract. Per D&B’s business model, customers pay premium pricing for shorter contract periods. D&B explained that the higher price is based on their GSA Schedule short term period of performance calculator. In this particular case, GSA is restricted from including longer option periods based on the overall acquisition strategy prescribed by the GSA Senior Procurement Executive. This strategy establishes an incentive to promote agency compliance with the UEI transition date of 1 April 2022. As a result, GSA hopes to avoid having to exercise the optional periods of performance, realizing that the government will pay a price premium if the UEI deadline is not met. In this case, paying a price premium for extended essential vendor validation services is an acceptable alternative to shutting down the entire Federal Government contracting operation, which would be far more costly than the price premium proposed by D&B. Since all government agencies are supposed to transition to the new Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) prior to the need for these optional periods of performance, the most cost-effective strategy is to make the transition to the new UEI on time and remove the need to not exercise the options, which the current strategy hopes to achieve.. The second option will be to re-negotiate for a 12-month option period if that becomes necessary and there is a bona fide need. It is noted that if agencies are not ready to accept the new UEI by April 2022, they will have to pay for the optional periods of performance; therefore, the higher D&B price could be used as a persuasive factor in getting them to meet the deadline. As stated above, D&B explained that the higher price is due to the shorter performance period. They explained that as a result they calculated the price based on their GSA Schedule short-term period of performance calculator.

(Reference D&B email dated 17 December 2020).

Based on the above analysis, it is determined that the fixed price for the 16-month base period is fair and reasonable, and that the fixed prices for the two optional periods is acceptable under the current sole source conditions when compared with the alternative to not purchasing these services should the government not be ready to implement the new UEI.

Discussions: Informal discussions were held with D&B to resolve three points.

1. The government does not have sufficient funds at the time of award to fully fund the 16-month base period. This issue was brought to the attention of D&B and they accepted incremental funding. It is noted that over 90% of the funds will be provided in the initial increment.

2. The government wishes that an $82,810.00 portion of the IM costs that are currently included in the subscription services be extracted from the basic subscription services and included as an option. D&B agreed to this change however explained that if the optional items “is not exercised, FFATA capability will not be available and notice from GSA may need to be provided to agencies that currently use this feature”. Not wanting to cut off third party agency users, D&B agreed to leave the Integration Manager software in the basic subscription service but reduce the price by $82,810.00 from $31,966,704.00 to $31,883,894.00, allowing for a gradual phase-out of this service. The government agreed to this solution.

3. D&B expressed concerns about meeting the government’s current IT security requirements.

These concerns were brought to the attention of the GSA IT security office who subsequently resolved the issues and approved going forward with the contract award.

AWARD PROCESS AND CONTRACTOR VALIDATION

The following additional information supports a contract award to Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.:

Acquisition Process: The acquisition plan and process was carried out as described above, in compliance with all governing regulations. The solicitation and evaluation of the proposal was conducted in accordance with the established criterion. The items solicited and proposed are consistent with the client’s bona fide requirement for Dun & Bradstreet Subscription Services.

Award of this contract will be made through GSA’s ITSS system.

Pricing and Price Reasonableness: (See the discussion of prices, above.)

Contractor Excluded Parties and SAM Validation:

Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. is not identified as excluded from conducting business with the Government on the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) as of 22 December 2020. The contractor’s registration, DUNS 135838084, is current in the sam.gov database through 15 September 2021. The company is not a small business.

Proposed Contract Type: The government proposes to award a single sole source, firm fixed-price contract to Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.

Contract Surveillance: Robert Owoyele, the GSA COR, in conjunction with the client representatives, will monitor contractor performance to ensure that the items are delivered on time, that Government inspection, acceptance, and contractor payment is properly carried out, and that the contract is properly closed in a timely manner.

Contract Language and Provisions: The language and provisions of the award document, the solicitation, and the respective offeror’s proposal will be incorporated into each contract either in full text or by reference.

Subcontracting Plan: None of the services provided by Dun and Bradstreet are subcontracted.

AWARD RECOMMENDATION

This acquisition has been processed and carried out as described above, in compliance with all governing regulations. The solicitation and review of the proposal was conducted in accordance with the solicitation provisions. The items solicited and proposed are consistent with the client’s bona fide requirement. Award of this contract will be made through GSA’s ITSS system.

Based on the government’s evaluation as presented above, it is recommended that Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. be awarded a contract for this requirement, it being determined that this firm provides an essential service not otherwise available to the Government. It is therefore concluded that awarding a contract base period for $31,883,894.00 and for a total potential price of $67,774,294.00 to Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., is judged to be in the best interest of the government.

Amanda Foster Date Contracting Officer Contracting Division GSA Region 5, FAS (5QZAE)

CONCURRENCE

Based on the foregoing award recommendation, I hereby concur with making a contract award for Subscription Services to Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.

Eben Greybourne Date Supervisory Contracting Officer Contracting Division GSA Region 5, FAS (5QZAE)

DocuSign Envelope ID: 5DE1B465-37EE-4311-A14B-D0882E330E9C

12/23/2020

12/23/2020

Award Recommendation and Concurrence