Simplified Sole Source - CISON.pdf

SOLE SOURCE - SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITIONS

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

RECOMMENDATION AND DETERMINATION TO SOLICIT FROM ONE SOURCE

I recommend that NSF negotiate with CISON, Inc. only for the purchase of Media Research & Distribution Services and Media Monitoring & Evaluation Services for a 12-month period and 4 12-month option periods. The Office of Legislative and Public Affairs (OLPA) core activities depend on the ability to communicate with key stakeholders in media and public affairs, and the ability to stay abreast of all NSF-related issues that could have a tangible impact on agency outcomes from around the world. The estimated value of this purchase is approx. $146,054.33, inclusive of all option years. The estimate is based on an informal quote received from one vendor, CISON.

I have reviewed other products/services to identify other vendors which might meet NSF’s requirements through one of the following methods:

X GSA Schedule Open Market Price Lists Previous requirements Other ______________________

FAR 19.502-2 requires an award to Small Business for supplies or services with an anticipated dollar value exceeding $3,000. If applicable specify why award is being recommended to other than a Small Business.

X No other Small Company can supply the equipment or service The Company does not have a small business distributor that can supply the equipment or service GSA schedule does not provide the equipment or service from small business Other ______________________________________

The total estimated cost of this effort is $146,054.33 (including option years).

This recommendation is made pursuant to FAR 13.106, for the acquisition of supplies or services determined to be reasonably available from only one source. Competition is impractical for the following reasons:

OLPA’s staff have reviewed the capabilities of several PR software tools and have determined that Cision exclusively suits our needs, as it has the largest advertised database of media contacts, with 1.6 million (more than 500,000 larger than the largest advertised competitor). While other services with smaller databases may be appropriate for other media organizations, NSF needs the most expansive information possible, as we are often looking to track down reporters who cover specific subsets of science or science-interested reporters from regions, industry reporters and bloggers.

Cision provides media monitoring capabilities, both automated and manual, upon which OLPA has worked to capitalize over the past several years. Cision’s base capabilities for media monitoring and automated report preparation match or exceed even those of companies that perform this task as their sole function, and its integrated Lexis Nexis feature provides OLPA with access to full articles in cases where the only other alternative would be to open a subscription to a particular publication.

OLPA staff have reviewed the capabilities of other vendors and seen demonstrations of similar products.

There are competitors that offer comparable media monitoring capabilities, and other competitors that focus on databased reporters (although not at Cision’s size). Cision, however, is the only single, integrated product that focuses on both. This allows OLPA to incorporate media lists, outreach emails and media tracking data under Cision’s campaign feature.

Cision also includes an integrated press release creator and email distribution system that OLPA has integrated into its outreach effort, including the use of its proprietary open-rate and click-rate systems.

Cision has been in-place and utilized extensively at NSF for over 5 years. If this application were to be replaced with another product that might have similar functionality, it would create costly delays and involve a significant learning curve as OLPA would have to recreate 115 custom lists of contacts (some with dozens or hundreds of contacts) as well as its custom templates. OLPA would also have to transfer all its outreach data off Cision and into a new product if it wants historical metrics on its activities, a lengthy process that would involve significant manual data entry.

Cision also offers an extensive digital help section, and has scheduled their staff frequent, informative NSF training sessions on the general application and specific features. Access to the site is simple and expansive under the current subscription; OLPA has more than 20 trained, listed users, and can add more at any time, allowing for consistent usage and metrics across teams.

Cision also offers potential additional features that its competitors do not. Cision merged with PR Newswire, the largest press release distribution service, and offers special pricing and access. Additionally, it offers an add-on subscription for television/video media monitoring. The advantage to obtaining this capability through Cision is that for a single, flat rate every person with an NSF login would be able to use it, and the data it generates could be seamlessly integrated into other Cision reports and media search results. In addition to broadening the Media Team’s view of NSF outreach impact, this would provide insight into targeting NSF multimedia products.

These services are only available through CISON as they do not have any authorized resellers or other vendors to sell their products or services.