JA redacted.pdf

Control Number FORCE VA-21-00084417

LIMITED-SOURCES JUSTIFICATION

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order to be issued under the General Service Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) Category 54151ECOM, for the renewal of brand name Fedmine software licenses, and associated maintenance support services, to Fedmine, LLC 13708 Ginkgo Terrace, Rockville, Maryland 20850 under GS-35F-0267X.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) has a requirement for renewal of one (1) Fedmine FD GovPro Premium, twenty FD01 GovPro Premium User, twenty-five FD01 GovPro Goaling User, fifty FD01 IContractor Pro User, one (1) FD01 Unlimited DWN, and eighty-three FD MaaS 40 Session two (2) annual subscriptions, to continue provision of a research data analytics solution support. Additionally, optional tasks will be added to the Base Period and each Option Period for additional licenses. The Fedmine solution

Toolkit specifically; (1) Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) development,

(2) goals management, (3) fair and reasonable price determinations, (4) practicable opportunities assessments, (5) forecast of contracting opportunities, (6) market research reporting, (7) vendor profiles, and (8) concept search functionality.

research as a mandatory member of certain Integrated Product Teams (IPTs), track GAO protest decisions and inform IPTs and policy decisions, to provide daily goaling reports on COVID-19 spend, to access large datasets to examine patterns and correlations of internal buyers that affects the Veteran community and other small socioeconomic categories, to provide quarterly subcontracting directory (fiscal year awards made by VA to other than small businesses above $750,000.00 with a subcontracting plan), and review subcontract awards linked to prime contracts at the task order level. Fedmine is also provide dashboards for the National Veterans Small Business Engagement (NVSBE) and to measure success of the event by tracking contracts won by conference attendees. Fedmine is further - Owned Small Business Initiative (WVOSBI) to run customized reports to assist with analyzing data from different categories to help with increasing the awards of WVOSBs.

Fedmine is also Review Team (PRT) in order to validate market research submitted with small business procurement reviews, within a mandatory five (5) day review lead-time. Lastly, Fedmine is used outside of OSDBU by Small Business Liaisons (SBLs) to facilitate secondary market research (i.e., searching historical data) conducted on behalf of the Veteran

Fedmine Market Research Software as a Service Control Number VA-21-00084417

Health Administration, Strategic Acquisition Center, and the Technology Acquisition Center. Maintenance support services will include all software updates and patches to the software. The period of performance shall be a 12-month Base Period with two 12-month Option Periods and optional tasks for additional licenses in the Base and each Option Period.

4. Authority: This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program. The specific authority providing for a limited source award is Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B), Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source is Fedmine, LLC 13708 Ginkgo Terrace, Rockville, Maryland 20850 under GS-35F-0267X.

The original suite of tools was developed over a ten year period beginning in 2011.

Fedmine has been under contract with the VA to configure, customize, operate, and maintain the solution since 2013. The current solution provides the core functionalites listed in Section 3 and is supported via multiple digital custom interfaces with the following data sources: Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS- NG), Census Bureau Bureau of Labor Statistics, SAM Entity Management, VA Vetbiz Vendor Information Pages (VIP), SAM Contract Opportunities, Grants.gov, Small Business Administration (SBA) Dynamic Small Business System (DSBS), Government

Bid Protest, General Services Administration (GSA), Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (eSRS), Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), Past Performance Integrity Reporting System (PPIRS), Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTAC) contact information, USASpending.gov, Federal Assistance Award Data System (FAADS), and County Business Patterns. These interfaces are specific to the Fedmine product and will not operate with any brand, requiring any alternative solution to require the redevelopment of each interface.

Additionally, Fedmine has worked very closely with the technical and functional stakeholders in VA architecture, including customizing its solution to meet specific VA business process requirements, and thus has significant knowledge of the current systems, security requirements, design, architecture, interconnectivity, and unique interoperability requirements. Any alternative product would require significant configuration and customization to meet the VA specific business processes listed in Section 3 above, based on the market research documented in Section 8 below.

If required to replace the existing solution VA will have to reconfigure the Veterans Enterprise Management System (VEMS) to host another solution, causing a significant delay of anywhere from twelve-months up to three (3) years, depending on the specific level of customization needed for any particular alternative, at an estimated cost of approximately $3.4M. These estimates are based on previous acquisition history and analysis conducted by OSDBU during its market research. Should the product not correctly support the specific OSDBU businesses processes listed above, OSDBU would be unable to meet their operational needs, support the small business community or comply with a variety of legislative and statutory mandates.

The current software and VA requires license renewals and maintenance compatible with the existing interfaces, protocols, and functionality to ensure continued operational availability. Only Fedmine can provide the necessary software updates, because of their access to their propriety source code, required to develop and implement software updates, and is the only vendor capable of providing licensing for the Fedmine product. Fedmine has confirmed that they do not have any resellers and only sell their product to the Government directly.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can also that there are no authorized resellers for Fedmine software licenses. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 8.405-6(a)(2) the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the SAM.gov Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: VA will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace and whether alternate products enter

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted from June through July of 2021 and consisted of a capability demonstration and internet queries of alternative solutions in support of the Government s requirements listed in Section 3 above. Specifically, EnProVera provided a capability demonstration of their Defense & Aerospace Competitive Intelligence Service (DACIS) (https://www.dacis.com/) product. The demo was assessed by the appropriate OSDBU program directorate and was found to incapable of meeting several of the functional and interoperability requirements listed in Section 5. Additionally, similar solutions from alternative vendors such as CINTAC A/S, Deena Systems, Inc., and Syms Strategic Group, LLC were reviewed. However it was discovered that they do not provide several of the requisite core functional capabilities and data source integrations listed in Section 5 and necessary to meet the Government s requirements.

Accordingly, only the Fedmine solution was determined to m technical and interoperability requirements listed in Section 5 above without a reduction delay in functionality and at a significant additional cost and delay. As was discussed above, Fedmine confirmed they do not have any resellers for this product and are the sole provider for this product which is offered through their GSA schedule, as confirmed via email on July 6, 2021.

9. Other Facts: None