CGI faces challenge from Deloitte over Army contract management system award

CGI Federal is the long-entrenched incumbent maintaining the Army’s Standard Procurement System and was tapped last month to update the system with a new program known as the Army Contract Writing System.

But Deloitte Consulting, a competitor for the $133.9 million contract, isn’t backing away from the project. It has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office objecting to the award to CGI.

The Army wants to move to a next generation system for writing and managing contracts. The service needs to meet requirements of the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act and integrate the system into existing enterprise resource planning solutions. It also wants to decrease the complexity of interfaces and improve audibility.

The Standard Procurement System is a Defense Department system and is reaching the end of its life, so the Army wants to revamp its business processes and not just replace the software.

CGI has a long record around the management of Defense Department contracts. It built the Standard Procurement System starting in the 1990s when the company was still known as American Management Systems. It has implemented similar systems for many other agencies as well.

The Army wants an enterprise system that can be used for contract writing, management, execution and close-out.

Besides CGI and Deloitte, there were seven other bidders. It is unclear if more protests are on the way.

The contract was competed as a best-value procurement with evaluation factors around technical/risk, past performance, price and small business participation. Technical/risk, past performance and small business participation when combined were more important than price, according to solicitation documents.

The solicitation, however, warns that if the non-price factors are equal between two or more bidders, “then Cost/Price Factor may become the determining Factor for award.”

Deloitte filed its protest June 9. A decision isn’t expected until Sept. 18.