GSA adds large business newcomers to Alliant 2

The dust has barely settled after the General Services Administration’s Friday announcement of awards of its 10-year, $50 billion Alliant 2 unrestricted contract that includes a few notable new entries.

As we reported Friday, 25 out of the 61 winners are new to the Alliant program entirely and were not on either the Alliant 1 predecessor’s full-and-open or small business tracks. The most notable newcomers for Alliant 2 are CenturyLink, ICF and Maximus.

Global telecommunications giant CenturyLink has scored a double bill of awards with GSA this year with Alliant 2 and the agency’s potential $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions vehicle awarded in August.

CenturyLink and AT&T are the only two companies with positions on both Alliant 2 and EIS. AT&T is a holdover from the original Alliant awarded in 2009 and slated to expire in 2019.

Lisa Bruch, senior director of government strategy at CenturyLink’s government markets business, told me Monday that Alliant 2 differs from EIS in a “scope that is broad without defining down to every component level what that service needs to look like.”

The wide variety of technologies agencies have access to through Alliant 2 appealed to CenturyLink, Bruch said. She cited cybersecurity, Internet of Things, biometrics and virtual private networking as among those.

Just like on EIS, Bruch said CenturyLink’s partnerships for Alliant 2 “are going to be opportunity driven” as each individual task order is made available to bid.

“We didn’t have a series of teaming partners pre-identified to have the flexibility to go to market with the right solution and right partner ecosystem to deliver services,” Bruch said.

Reston, Va.-based Maximus is somewhat of a new entry as its own independent contract holder on Alliant 2. On Alliant 1, Maximus was one of four members of the joint venture Alliant Solutions LLC.

Catapult Technology, Pragmatics and Sabre Systems were the other three partners, and all but Sabre Systems have won their own spots on Alliant 2.

Alliant Solutions LLC won $51.2 million in task orders under the original Alliant, according to Deltek data. But that was no guarantee that Maximus would be chosen for the new Alliant iteration, Maximus Federal Services General Manger Tom Romeo told me.

“We had to qualify on our own capabilities (and) couldn’t use our partners’ qualifications,” Romeo said.

What made Alliant 2 of particular interest to Maximus is the path of agencies using category management for government-wide acquisition contracts that include technology, Romeo said.

“It’s a perfect place for Alliant 2 to move,” he added. “This is probably one of, if not the broadest GWAC as far as bringing capabilities to the marketplace.”

Fairfax, Va.-based ICF adds Alliant 2 to its GSA contract vehicle portfolio that also includes the governmentwide OASIS professional services and Human Capital and Training Solutions programs. ICF representatives could not be reached for comment.

Also of note, six companies on Alliant 2 also have been acquired since proposals were due in October of last year:

• Camber Corp. was bought by Huntington Ingalls Industries.
• Dell’s federal services unit was added by NTT Data.
• EOIR Technologies was merged into what is now Polaris Alpha.
• Sotera Defense Solutions was purchased by KeyW Corp.
• URS Corp. was acquired by AECOM.
• Wyle Laboratories was picked up by KBR.

Then there is DXC Technology’s U.S. public sector business and Vencore, both of which are combining KeyPoint Government Solutions in a three-way merger to create a new company. DXC is on Alliant 2 through the heritage HP Enterprise Services along with Vencore.

DXC representatives declined to comment for this story. But like EIS holders CenturyLink and Level 3 with their merger, expect the new $4.4 billion company arising from that trifecta to consolidate contracts all parties hold now or novate those each have on their own.

GSA officials wouldn’t comment on the merger but said that their practice is to wait until after an acquisition closes to talk with the companies about how they will manage the contracts.