In This Week’s Newsletter: [01/25/24]
Competitive Intelligence & Pricing: “Toppling the Giant” – Beating an Incumbent Without Being the Lowest Price
Opportunity Spotlight of the Week: GSA ALLIANT 3
AI Corner: Generative AI Tool Assessments
Culture Corner: Staying On Track In 2024
Four To Follow: Get the lowdown on four interesting opportunities!
“Toppling the Giant” – Beating an Incumbent Without Being the Lowest Price
Contact Chris: chris.placzek@hinzconsulting.com
In public sector procurements, defeating an incumbent without being the lowest bidder requires a strategic approach focusing on value. This involves highlighting superior quality, innovative solutions, socio-economic benefits, risk mitigation, and tailored services. It is all about demonstrating comprehensive value that aligns with the broader programmatic objectives of the customer.
Three Key Takeaways
1. Provide Value Beyond Price: Demonstrate comprehensive value in your offering that extends beyond just pricing. This includes demonstrating superior quality, delivery performance, innovative solutions, and additional socio-economic benefits.
2. Customize and Partner: Tailor solutions to address your customer’s long-term business needs and objectives (going beyond the proposed contract term, if needed), and position your company as a collaborative partner rather than just another vendor.
3. Risk Mitigation and Stability: Emphasize your company’s ability to mitigate risks and its stability and reliability as a service provider to counteract the “safe choice” appeal of the incumbent, making your proposal more attractive.
GSA ALLIANT 3
Contact Len: len.miller@hinzconsulting.com
This is the follow-on to the successful GSA ALLIANT 2 (62 incumbent contracts) and will be a Full/Open-Unrestricted GWAC-IDIQ procurement with estimated value of $75B. The second Draft RFP was released in early Dec 2023 and comments were due on Jan 16th. and final RFP is estimated to be released in the Spring of 2024 (late April/May). According to the GSA presentation on January 11th 2024, on The Alliant Program: Alliant 3 Second Draft, they wish to proceed quickly with Alliant 3.
All sections were included in the second Draft RFP with the exception of Pricing. This is still being developed and will be released when ready, hopefully before the final RFP is released this spring. A pre-proposal conference will be held after final RFP release. There were many significant, positive changes in this second draft RFP with the major ones being:
- Relevant Experience Project Size Thresholds Reduced
- Reduction in dollar values from $275M to $100M, $100M to $35M, and $35M to $7.5M (L.5.2.3.3 Relevant Experience – Project Size)
- Reduction in dollar values for additional points to correspond with section L values (M.6 – Alliant 3 Scoring Table)
- Federal Primary Relevant Experience Submissions Expanded
- All offerors may use work performed as as a subcontractor that fits RFP criteria
- Federal Subcontracts can roll down to Agency, Cost Projects, Foreign Location (L.5.2.3.4, L.5.2.3.5, and L.5.2.3.7 – Primary Relevant Experience NAICS Areas)
- Cost Accounting System and Audit Information
- Not restricted to DCMA or DCAA audits
- May use Cognizant Federal Agency or Certified Public Accountant statement of Cost Accounting System audit to be found acceptable by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (L.5.4.1 Cost Accounting System and Audit Information)
Key points:
- Estimated to be 60 awardees
- Awardees to have a 10-year contract term and no ceiling master contract
- Periodic open seasons to occur
- Basis for evaluation for awards will be determined by Highest Technically Rated Offerors with a Fair and Reasonable Price (HTRFRP). Must be amongst the top 60 highest rated Offerors to be considered a HTRFRP Offeror. There could end up being more than 60 awards if ties occur within the top 60 rated Offerors.
- Acceptability Review is conducted on proposals on a Pass/Fail basis on required information. Only “acceptable” proposals move into the Technical Evaluation and are scored per the Alliant 3 Scoring Table. Offerors make their own assessments but the Technical Evaluation on Relevant Experience; Past Performance; Systems, Certifications, and Clearances; and Organizational Risk Assessment must include the required information to substantiate the claimed points. A maximum of 92,200 points may be claimed.
- An overall Responsibility Determination IAW FAR Part 9 is conducted on a Pass/Fail basis and if not deemed responsible, an Offeror will not be considered for an award.
Major Acquisition Objectives:
- Maintain a Best-in-Class Solution Designation
- Use standardized IT Labor Categories and Prices Paid Portal
- No-Ceiling Master Contract
- Performance Standard Improvement to include fewer termination through off-ramp tradeoffs and more competition with task order proposals with small business (SB) subcontracting
- Increased focus on SB through Subcontracting Plans, Performance Standards, and Evaluation Factors
- Enhance Environmental and Sustainability Plans
- Enhance the Customer Experience
- Streamline Proposal Evaluation through use of technology to increase government evaluation speed/accuracy and simplifying industry solicitation response and industry response
- Increase IT Modernization Opportunities
- Provision for Open Seasons which will occur periodically to evaluate competition levels and on-ramp opportunities
This is a great contract vehicle and is widely used across the Federal Government. Let Hinz Consulting help you pull together the required substantiation documentation and review it for compliance and proof of points claimed.
Generative AI Tool Assessments
Contact Josh: josh.thiel@hinzconsulting.com
The change from search tools to Generative AI platforms is akin to the leap from analog phones to Touch Screen phones – after you experience the productivity advantages of a Generative AI, how could you ever go back? Hinz Consulting conducts comprehensive AI tool assessments to make sure our clients select the right tool.
A good Generative AI tool should do the following for you….
- Generative AI searches your Knowledge Management to find applicable reference documents and uses those documents to generate new content. Generative AI eliminates the need for tagging or searching your KM for hours on end.
- Generative AI combines the search and the generation of content, allowing you to sunset KM search tools. As you sunset the KM search tools, you can reinvest the cost savings in more capable Generative AI products.
- Legacy KM search tools, evaluated by Hinz, involve extensive tagging of data and labeling. Tagging at scale for your whole Knowledge Management repository is a costly task for any team, and in many cases, an impossible endeavor. Gen AI requires no manual tagging and labeling to set up.
Staying On Track In 2024
Contact Angela: angela.marsh@hinzconsulting.com
Clear your mind, take a deep breath, and look back that the past few weeks. While it may seem premature for reflection, doing so now provides ample time to adjust our methods.
As we wrap up the first month of a new year, it’s a good time to reflect on the goals we’ve made and evaluate our progress. We’ve defined our goals, broken them down into manageable actions, and defined key metrics. So how are we doing so far?
Ask yourself:
- How often are you completing the daily tasks that move you forward? Express that in a percentage. Seeing your effort as a real number is enlightening!
- What are the top 3 obstacles that prevent you from completing those tasks? Perhaps there is a common underlying theme that needs to be addressed.
- What are the key drivers on the days that you are successful? Identify the positive things that motivate you and build on them.
Four to Follow:
2024 and beyond is a target-rich environment for the GOVCON space. Maybe we will actually have an approved budget for FY24 before we get to September? Here are a few more high-value opportunities you should keep your eyes on and decide if you are pursuing as a prime or sub.
- DHS Program Management Administrative Clerical and Technical Services (PACTS III) – the follow-on to PACTS II which has 39 incumbent contracts. PACTS III is estimated at $8.4B program value across potential awards to 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB and WOSB companies. DHS just released a consolidated set of Q&A on 18 Jan and now the Final RFP is expected to release on or about 1 Feb with an award estimated in early Q1 FY25.
- Comprehensive Construction and Engineering (C2E) – The Air Force released a mod on Jan 18th changing the solicitation number to FA890324R0023 along with an updated Synopsis. Final RFP is not expected on or after Feb 28th and a 45 day turn to proposal submission. Estimated award is April 2, 2025. Air Force anticipates 12 contract awards under the Full/Open portion and 15 contract awards under the SBSA portion.
- PD Aerostat Production Fielding Sustainment and Life Cycle Support MATOC IDIQ – the latest forecast by the Army is that this RFP is planned for release in Q4 FY24…so maybe Sept? This $4.1B IDIQ MATOC is potentially set up as a Competitive SBSA and Full/Open Unrestricted and potentially 6 awards (3 SBSA awards and 3 F/O unrestricted awards).
- GSA ASCEND – this multiple award BPA for Federal Agencies to acquire and implement secure, integrated commercial cloud service solutions and cloud-focused labor services is expected to be released May 2024. GSA released a modification on Jan 4th to extend due date for questions/comments on the draft RFP until Feb 21st. Industry should expect a phased award process with an unknown number of awards in each of the 3 Primary Pools: Pool 1 – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS); Pool 2 – Software as a Service (SaaS); and Pool 3 – Cloud Professional Services. Awards estimated to begin in early FY25.
About Hinz Consulting
Hinz Consulting provides services across the full business development cycle:
- Proposal Consulting
- AI Services
- Strategic Pricing
- Training
- Capture
- Competitive Intelligence
- BD Transformation Consulting
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