Protest nets second chance for ICS Nett

ICS Nett Inc. didn’t like it when the State Department dropped the company from the competitive range of its $20.6 million contract for physical security information management.

The company filed a protest Aug. 31 with the Government Accountability Office, and three days later, the protest was dismissed when the State Department let ICS Nett back into the competition.

The contract is currently held by Boeing, but State has converted it to a small business set-aside contract.

The agency is running a two-part acquisition process, and ICS Nett failed to make the cut for part two; however, thanks to its protest, State backtracked and will allow ICS Nett to compete.

The quick turnaround from protest to dismissal is likely because letting ICS Nett back into the competition was an easy decision. It was likely less painful to allow ICS Nett to continue to compete than to litigate the decision to exclude ICS Nett from the contest.

The State Department would not have been allowed to make an award while the protest continued. That would have resulted in Boeing continuing to provide the services. Boeing already is supporting the State Department through an extension of its original contract, which it won in 2009.

The contract is used to support the technology lifecycle of State Department systems. Some of the requirements include maintaining servers and operating systems. There is also a need for integration services with other systems, testing and training.

The contract is expected to be awarded in November.