EAGLE II
EAGLE II: A $22 Billion Bull’s-Eye
Will EAGLE II reach its $22 billion ceiling?
By
Steve LeSueur
Although the first EAGLE contract will not come close to its ambitious
ceiling of $45 billion, analysts see many reasons to believe that EAGLE
II will be more widely used than its predecessor. When DHS officials
began planning EAGLE I in late 2004, the Department of Homeland
Security was still coming together as an agency, so not all components
were ready to embrace an agency-wide, indefinite quantity/ indefinite
delivery (IDIQ) contract.
But use of EAGLE has grown steadily since its 2006 debut. Over the past
three years, EAGLE has averaged about $2.6 billion in annual awards and
today EAGLE accounts for approximately 25 percent of DHS spending on IT
services and solutions, according to market analysts. EAGLE contractors
hope to build on that momentum with EAGLE II, especially as older,
pre-EAGLE contracts start to expire. “In the first years of an
IDIQ vehicle like EAGLE, it’s going to take some time to ramp
up,” said Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief
knowledge officer of the market research firm FedSources.
“But as legacy contracts within DHS wind down, agency components
may be persuaded to move to EAGLE II.”
Kevin Plexico, senior vice president for research and analysis services
at INPUT, said EAGLE II has an opportunity to expand into some of
DHS’s larger component agencies. For example, Customs and Border
Protection spent about $1.2 billion on IT products and services in
fiscal year 2009, but only $103 million went through EAGLE.
“There’s a lot of room for expansion within Customs and
Border Protection,” he said.
EAGLE officials have been pleased with the contract’s growth.
They will continue talking with component agencies and educating them
about EAGLE II, encouraging them to use the contract when it meets
their requirements. But they also expect contractors to play a strong
role in helping expand EAGLE’s reach within DHS. “We expect
the awardees under the EAGLE II contract to actively participate in the
task order process by bidding on all projects or giving the rationale
for why they chose not to submit an offer on a particular
project,” said Soraya Correa, director of the DHS Office of
Procurement Operations.