Earlier this month, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released the eagerly anticipated draft solicitation for the follow on for its Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP). This competitive procurement will provide information technology and audio visual products as well as product based services. Industry comments on the draft document are due by May 3, 2013. The final solicitation is expected to be released this summer, on or around June 24, 2013. Following release of the SEWP V draft RFP, NASA hosted an industry event on March 11, 2013 to field questions from industry and to discuss changes from the current version of the contract. Among the changes noted are the number of competition groups, performance period and ceiling values. The performance period for the contract has increased to 10 years, and the ceiling value has risen to twenty billion dollars. At the same time, the number of competition Groups is being reduced (to the four shown below for SEWP V), a move that’s expected to reduce the costs to both industry and government.
In another change from previous versions, the draft references the impact of cloud computing on the SEWP V offerings. One industry attendee noted that there was only a single cloud service offering made available through SEWP (Virtual Storage Technology). Thus, it was suggested that the Categories be expanded to include a Group covering the full set of cloud computing resources, including virtual machines, virtual storage, virtual networks, virtual databases, virtual data warehouses etc. A few points from the Statement of Work were highlighted in response to this suggestion: All Groups are to have the same scope of products available under them. Cloud computing offerings would fall under the “breadth and depth of offerings that can be proposed as available components” by vendors in all Groups. At this time, there is no plan to increase the number or types of competition Groups.
As we explored previously, the SEWP contracts are utilized by all Federal Agencies. The 70 federal agencies, boards and organizations using the SEWP Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) result in around 25,000 orders annually. At around of $90,000 per order, the contract vehicle averages $2 billion in reported spending each year for the past three years. Moving forward, NASA plans to fully track orders through SEWP V. This data will help agencies understand their buying patterns, primarily in support of strategic sourcing. A cross-agency priority goal for strategic sourcing in both 2013 and 2014 aims to achieve a 10 percent savings by reducing the costs of acquiring common products and services. As budget pressure continues, agencies will look to further centralize buying through inter-agency strategic sourcing vehicles and establish cost-effective spending patterns. For vendors, securing a place on these strategic contracting vehicles will become increasingly important to maintaining market share.
For more information on SEWP V, visit the GovWin Opportunity Report.