Deloitte fights for $80M Defense Health Agency contract

Deloitte’s fight for an $80 million Defense Health Agency contract has entered a new round as the company has filed another bid protest after it lost a second competition for the work.

The contract for program management support went to Data Networks Group. The contract goes by the acronym GRAMS for Governance, Requirements and Architecture Management Support.

Data Networks Group first won the contract in September of last year. Deloitte filed its first protest, and DHA pulled back the award to take a corrective action.

The agency took a second look at the proposals and again made the award to Data Networks.

And again, Deloitte filed a protest complaining about flaws in the source selection decision.

What happens from here will be interesting. We have seen contracts go through multiple rounds of corrective actions, but that is very rare.

Usually, the agency has fixed whatever issues was raised in the protest. So either there is something new Deloitte has discovered, or it just isn’t happy with the result and won’t be happy unless it is named the winner.

We’ll know in the next 30 days or so. Either DHA will file its response with the Government Accountability Office, which means it is standing by its selection of Data Networks Group, or it’ll pull the award back again and take a corrective action.

GAO's decision is expected by April 15.

A side note on Data Networks Group. In November, the company, which had been a woman-owned small business, was acquired by Arctic Slope Regional Corp., an Alaska Native Corporation. It now operates as a subsidiary and can still be considered a small business because of its ANC ownership. But it also now has more resources at its disposal.