ITES-3S moves forward with draft, industry day

The Army has released its draft solicitation for the IT Enterprise Solutions-3 Services contract and has extended its deadline for questions for its upcoming industry day on for the $12.1 billion IT services contract.

The industry day is scheduled for June 10 at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The deadline for questions has been set for the day before.

ITES-3S is the third iteration of the Army’s leading IT services contract. According to Deltek data, ITES-2S has captured more than $10 billion in task orders since it was awarded in 2006. Because of delays in fielding ITES-3S, the Army has extended 2S through April 2018, which will give plenty of time for the transition from one contract to the next.

The extra time is needed to get through debriefings and potential bid protests as well as allow time for a phase-in period.

ITES-2S has 16 prime contractors, and expectations are that all will compete for spots on 3S as well as any potential newcomers. If the pattern holds from other multiple award contracts, ITES-3S might end up with a larger pool of prime contractors. There are also will likely be a group of small business awards with at least three each in the HUBZone, service-disabled, veteran-owned and women-owned categories.

The contract has eight service areas:

• Business process reengineering
• Cybersecurity services
• IT services
• Enterprise design, integration and consolidation
• Education and training
• IT supply chain management
• Telecommunications/systems operation and maintenance
• Network/systems and operation maintenance

Bidders will have to address all eight areas in their proposals.

The contract will have a five-year base period with one four-year option. It is open to all of the Defense Department as well as civilian agencies, but it is designed to meet specific Army needs.

Some of the technology challenges the Army wants to address include a single security architecture that will reduce the Army’s “external attack surface,” according to the statement of work. The Army is also interested in network normalization, identity and access management, enterprise services, cloud computing and data center consolidation.

The final RFP is expected to be out in September.

Some helpful links:

Army Single Face to Industry Acquisition Business Web Site

Notice posted on FBO.gov