Air Force kicks off $3.7B business transformation recompete
An Air Force KC-10 Extenders line tarmac in February 2023 at Travis Air Force Base, California. Air Force Photo by Heide Couch
By
Ross Wilkers
Up to eight companies will win seats on this contract but must choose one path out of two to go down in their bids.
The Air Force has opened the window for industry to start working on their proposals for the recompete of contract vehicle focused on business and other strategic transformation initiatives across the service branch.
Iteration number two of the Air Force Strategic Transformation Support program will have a $3.7 billion ceiling over five years, or a maximum amount almost four times larger than the current version’s original amount.
Bids for the new Department of the Air Force Strategic Transformation Support II vehicle are due by 1 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 22, the service branch said in its Wednesday notice to release the final solicitation.
Air Force leaders have structured the recompete into a pair of tiers, but companies have to choose which one to submit a proposal for and not both. Up to eight firms will be chosen for DAFSTS II.
Tier one will have up to three primes and center around “highly complex, undefined and unstructured problems" that are "usually large in scale with little context or definition provided."
Contractors that pursue tier one must detail their past corporate experience in successfully performing studies, research and analysis and developing transformational strategies for Fortune 1-50 companies.
Up to five firms can win seats for the second tier that focuses on “moderate to complex” problems, or those that the Air Force sees as complex but usually understood with a goal defined.
Bidders have a wider range of clients they can pull from to detail their corporate experience, in this case being Fortune 1-200 companies.
Technical and price are the two evaluation factors, with the former being “always more important” than the latter as the Air Force puts it.
Eight companies won seats on the current AFSTS contract in 2020 for a performance period of up to seven years and a ceiling of $990 million to compete for at the time of award.
The Air Force has since bumped the ceiling to approximately $2 billion and obligated $1.1 million in task order spend to-date, according to GovTribe data. Deloitte, KPMG and Definitive Logic Corp. are the three largest incumbents at a collective share of 60.6%.
How the Air Force defines the word “Transformation” is also worth reading in full from the solicitation to understand what it is after and wants from its primes for this effort:
“Transformation is a step or incremental-change that will fundamentally impact the enterprise, through the improvement of how organizations holistically use people, processes, technology, data, and physical infrastructure to develop capabilities to meet their mission.
“Transformation should achieve measurable improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, and stakeholder satisfaction.
“Step change is like the sledgehammer: powerful, impactful, and capable of sweeping changes quickly. Incremental change is the scalpel: precise, deliberate, and resulting in gradual but consistent improvements over a more extended period.”