Virginia re-ups CGI-AMS for e-procurement work

CGI-AMS Inc. won a five-year, $65 million contract renewal to host, maintain and operate Virginia's Web-based procurement portal.

The portal, known as eVA, is designed to reduce costs and create efficient purchasing processes by funneling procurements through a single, secure, electronic portal. The portal is powered by technologies from CGI-AMS and Ariba Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.

Virginia hired CGI-AMS in 2001 to design and implement a new online procurement system that makes purchasing faster and easier. The state has since used the portal to process more than 1 million orders for $10 billion in goods and services.

Before creating the new system, Virginia had 171 agencies, institutions and other public entities using a variety of desktop applications, automated purchasing systems and manual processes for procurement. The patchwork system did not allow information-sharing or joint purchasing, according to state and company officials.

CGI-AMS of Fairfax, Va., is a unit of CGI Group Inc. of Montreal, which has about 25,000 employees. CGI-AMS ranks No. 53 on Washington Technology's 2006 Top 100 list of federal prime contractors.