Accenture protests lost Army business system contract

IBM bested Accenture for a $10 million Army contract, and now Accenture is asking the Government Accountability Office to review the award.

IBM won the $10.1 million contract in December for sustainment services for the Army General Fund Enterprise Business System.

The system is the Army’s web-based financial, asset and accounting management system. Accenture built the system under the current contract, which explains why they have filed a protest with GAO.

According to Deltek, Accenture first began working on the system in 2005 and won a recompete in 2011. Accenture’s webpage also touts a win in 2014 to support the system.

While the price tag on this particular task is relatively small, Accenture describes on its website a large and complex project.

Known as the GFEBS, the system pulled together 107 legacy financial management and real property systems into a single system, according to Accenture. The system manages $220 billion and 52,000 users.

Accenture also says that the system was the first Army-wide system to meet and sustain Federal Financial Management Improvement Act compliance.

Accenture filed its protest on Jan. 9. A decision is expected by April 19.