We did an internal review of our task orders under multiple award IDIQ contracts. We found that most of our fair opportunity notices resulted in one offer even though we sent notices to other contractors.

Two questions:

1. Is anyone having the same problem and what is your solution?

2. Any ideas from contractors to get more than one offer?

By Anonymous on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 11:12 am:

In response to 2.

- Sounds simple and common sense, but make sure the RFP/TOR/whatever reflects the Government's requirement .. In many cases it appears that an incumbent wrote the requirements, and no one else could reasonably expect to meet them given the lack of position. Indeed, many times contractor names, both individual and company, show up under file properties (for electronic files) which may be harmless but generally indicates a lack of objectivity (at best).

- Make the proposals as simple (read: cheap) as possible. Marketing dollars are not spent at whim.

- Encourage participation. Sometimes IDIQ pies seem to be divvied up between contractors -- you bid on this, I'll bid on that. The Government should (as personally as possible - phone calls, etc) encourage as many offerors as possible to demonstrate its commitment to impartiality. That being said, sometimes it seems as though the Government only requests a bid when it needs the appearance of competition. Avoid that ...

By anon 37 on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 11:36 am:

Thanks. That will be incorporated into our proposal. Anyone else?

By formerfed on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 11:39 am:

Companies fail to bid because they don't see it's worth their time. In many instances, they can tell who the winner is.

If you want competition, the tasks must be structered to allow it. My suggestions are: (1) meet with the contractors and ask them what their perspective is on the IDIQ arrangement and competition specifically, (2) get your program offices to start structuring their needs to promote competition, (3) conduct market research and provide draft statements of requirements to your contractors for comments, and (4) streamline the way you select contractors if you find companies must make a large investment in responding.

By anon 37 on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 12:12 pm:

Thanks again. Keep them comin'

By Anonymous8 on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 12:32 pm:

- Leave enough time for someone to actually prepare a response.

- Let people know if the work is not a follow-on to a previous task. Contractors have told me they like knowing this.

By anon 37 on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 02:07 pm:

Thanks again.

What about the number of contractors awarded contracts under task areas. Has anyone heard contractors feel that they participated in a multiple award IDIQ where too many contracts were awarded? Are contractors more inclined to compete for task orders if they know there are 5 potential competitors under contract and not 12?

By formerfed on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 02:21 pm:

Many people have the wrong impression about multiple award task order contracts. Take a look at the ordering provision in FAR 16.505. It states each awardeee must be provided a fair opportunity to be considered for each order. Furthermore, the CO has broad discretion and "need not contact each of the mutiple awardees...if the CO has information available to ensure each awardeee is provided a fair opportunity to be considered." The issue is not the total number of contractors, but how you get down to the number for serious consideration. This is what I meant in the prior comment about streamlining the way you select.

By anon 37 on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 02:41 pm:

Formerfed

So what you are saying is that the more streamlined the selection process, the more the contractors would be inclined to submit offers on task orders because it is inexpensive to offer.

The FAR only requires us to consider

-- Past performance on earlier orders under the contract, including quality, timeliness and cost control.

-- Potential impact on other orders placed with the contractor.

-- Minimum order requirements.

Really, there are only the first two if we did not award too many contracts. Since we qualify offerors for task descriptions up front in the contract award phase, there really is no need for a technical evaluation on proposals for task orders as long as they are within the scope of the task descriptions they had qualified for. We already concluded they could do the work--right?

Does anyone else feel that more complicated selection procedures actually reduce the number of offers we receive on task orders?

By Eric Ottinger on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 03:03 pm:

I’m going to second the good advice from Formerfed in somewhat different terms.

(1) Court them. Let them know you love them.
(2) Tell them you are going to do a real competition with no favorites and nothing predetermined.
(3) Follow-through and make it happen.

If the best you can do is a sham competition where the incumbent always wins, you are going to find yourself with serious problems

Under the new rules you must get three offers. I don’t think contractors are going to keep submitting offers just to make our files thicker.

Eric

By Vern Edwards on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 03:07 pm:

Eric:

Under what new rules do you need to get three offers?

By formerfed on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 03:25 pm:

Anon37,

What I'm saying is companies won't go through the time and effort of responding unless they like the odds of winning. Knowing they are one of the sources the government likes and looks on favorably for the requirement is motivating. On the other hand being one of tweleve companies considered for each and every task has the opposite effect.

By anonymouse on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 03:46 pm:

anon 37:

your point seems valid. if contractors are already qualified under a task description, why should they be evaluated for technical performance against that task? isn't this a waste of time. why not just consider past performance and cost/price.

By joel hoffman on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 04:03 pm:

anon 37, I can confirm what formerfed said, at least for the the design-build industry. The industry groups have publicly said the same thing. If they have to spend money and resources preparing a proposal, they will go after the projects where they feel they have an advantage and they like knowing there are reasonable odds. Three or four other competitors are considered reasonable - 11 others ain't. happy sails! joel

By anon 37 on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 04:05 pm:

Joel

Thanks for the straight answer.

By Eric. Ottinger on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 04:07 pm:

Vern,

I should have said "new rules for services under multiple award contracts."

I think the significance of this rule is that competition can't be just a matter of going through the motions any more. It has to be real. Incumbents have to lose on occasion.

Eric

By formerfed on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 04:08 pm:

Anonymouse,

Most the the multiple award task order contracts I've seen are rather broad. If you look at the larger IT awards for example, they include many phases of the development process. All the contractors are qualified is some respect, but you may not want the one who is best in preparing investment analyisis for Clinger-Cohen compliance to do your programming or security analysis.

Even with a more limited scope, you don't necessarly want all contractors to waste their time and yours if you have a large number to begin with.

By Vern Edwards on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 - 04:33 pm:

Eric:

Just a point of clarification--the three offer rule applies only when the CO does not provide "fair notice" to "all" contractors. See Sec. 803(b), esp. subparagraph (4). If the CO provides fair notice to all contractors, then there is no requirement that he or she receive a minimum number of offers.

By Anonymous on Thursday, March 28, 2002 - 08:25 am:

Fortunately, we are a civilian agency and not subject to that. However, I do note that the legislation is inconsistent with the best practices outlined in OFPP's document from 1997.

I guess the defense agencies consider the legislation a better practice than the identified best practices?