GSA makes Phase II awards on 'Centers of Excellence' IT modernization effort

The General Services Administration has made awards for the second phase of its “Centers of Excellence” program to push IT modernization efforts across federal agencies.

But while the actual contract values were undisclosed, this new round of awards acts as a data point to indicate some newfound aggression in the federal government to overhaul how agencies approach IT and interact with citizens amid the push to modernize with commercial market practices in mind.

Phase II contracts for the CoE effort will focus on implementing technology recommended in the first phase, which saw five contracts given to four companies in March. Both Phase I and Phase II contracts see work start out of the Agriculture Department, which GSA views as the “first lighthouse agency” to act as an early proving ground for modernization initiatives.

GSA broke out the Phase II awards into six areas, five of which went to individual winners and another for infrastructure optimization and cloud adoption with multiple recipients. Accenture Federal Services, Booz Allen Hamilton and Science Applications International Corp. won awards in two areas each.

Single award details are as follows:

• OneUSDA Contact Center -- Accenture Federal Services
• Voice of the Customer Tool -- NIC Federal
• Data Analytics Capacity Building and Data Visualization and Analytics -- Science Applications International Corp.
• Customer Experience Digital Support Services -- Booz Allen Hamilton
• Business Modernization Office Support Services -- Summit Consulting LLC

Winners of the infrastructure optimization cloud adoption track are:

• Ace Info Solutions
• Accenture Federal Services
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• Deloitte Consulting
• OM Group
• TechFlow
• Science Applications International Corp.
• Smartronix
• TechTrend
• T-Rex Solutions