As we enter the second half of the calendar year 2023, this blog summarizes some substantial federal contract wins and losses thus far. Some competitors celebrated while others mourned some rough losses. Read on to learn about some big highlighted wins and losses in this never ending game of federal contracting musical chairs.
Booz Allen Hamilton Takes Another Large FEDSIM Win
In May 2023, Booz Allen Hamilton was awarded the $919 million Engineering, Development, Integration and Technology-based Solutions (EDITS) task order, a research and development contract supporting U.S. Army Program Executive Offices (PEOs), U.S. Army Development Command (DEVCOM) Soldier Center and the DoD’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA). This task order was awarded by GSA FEDSIM through the GSA ASTRO vehicle.
CACI executes a big takeaway at the NSA
After multiple rounds of protests, CACI was awarded the $2.4 billion NSA FocusedFox contract in May 2023. This follows a five-year, $284 million contract awarded in January 2023 to provide mission expertise and systems engineering support for NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate. FocusedFox is a consolidation of three contracts focused on network and exploitation analysis services to support the NSA’s analyst framework. Former incumbents Leidos and Booz Allen Hamilton challenged the NSA’s best value determination and cost evaluation, respectively.
According to the Leidos protest published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), it appears Leidos’ staffing approach lost the award. Leidos’ labor rates on average were 2% lower than the IGCE, while CACI’s rates either met or exceeded it. These lower labor rates presented a low to moderate risk of unsuccessful performance. Note that the Booz Allen Hamilton protest has not yet been made public.
CACI wins the largest contract in their history with another U.S. Air Force takeaway
In June 2023, CACI was officially awarded the $5.7 billion Enterprise Information Technology as a Service (EITaaS) Wave 1 contract after rounds of protests. CACI will transform the Air Force’s IT service delivery for more than 800,000 airmen and Space Force guardians. EITaaS was originally awarded in August 2022 but faced protests from Accenture Federal Services, Peraton and SAIC (the incumbent), who alleged unfair advantage based on CACI’s employment of three former government officials. After taking corrective action, the Air Force again picked CACI and subsequent protests were denied.
COLSA grabs a takeaway win at NASA from a long-term incumbent
In June 2023, COLSA was awarded a nine-year, $400 million contract to provide a broad range of support to the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC). The contract includes support for financial management, human resources, procurement and other services. This is a significant takeaway from GDIT, who has held this work since 2005 through legacy CSC.
Engineering, Research and Consulting (ERC) wins a significant takeaway at NASA
In January 2023, ERC was awarded the $145 million Laboratory Support Services and Operations II (LASSO II) contract to support the operation and maintenance of laboratories, development shops and test facilities for Kennedy Space Center. The award was protested by incumbent Amentum, who held this work through legacy AECOM.
In the evaluation, NASA assigned a weakness to Amentum’s proposal under the management approach because Amentum’s blended rates were lower than the incumbent rates. These blended labor rates were found to be too low to maintain program continuity and posed a risk to contract performance. Amentum’s remaining footprint at KSC comes from the Base Operations and Spaceport Services (BOSS) through a joint venture with KBR.
Jacobs defends key legacy work at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
In February 2023, Jacobs was awarded the 10-year, $3.2 billion Consolidated Operations, Management, Engineering & Test (COMET) contract at NASA KSC. This contract extends Jacobs’ role managing KSC’s launch infrastructure and ground processing for NASA programs, including the Exploration Ground Systems program, International Space Station program and other NASA spaceflight programs which Jacobs has supported since 2013. Jacobs provides engineering; ground system development; flight vehicle/spacecraft processing; and launch, landing and recover operations for NASA’s major Exploration Systems Development programs.
Leidos produces a series of wins to bolster their health portfolio at CMS
In March 2023, Leidos announced the award of a prime contract and three subcontracts by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) totaling $102 million. The prime contract supports the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the Infrastructure and User Services Group (IUSG) with a focus on managing operations, managed services, and application workloads. The three subcontract positions support CMS’ Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, the Marketplace Information Technology Group, and the OIT for enterprise portal services.
Peraton continues to expand their cloud computing story and space domain mission
In June 2023, Peraton was awarded the 11-year, $1 billion Cloud Hosting Solutions III (CHS III) contract to provide broad cloud computing services for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Under CHS III, Interior will transition to an environment relying on multiple cloud providers and a single integrator to emphasize standardization and efficiency.
Peraton was also awarded an eight-year, $400 million contract in February 2023 to provide ground services for polar-orbiting weather satellites. Peraton supports and maintains the Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground Services (JPSS CGS), which offers communications links for satellites operated by NOAA and its partners.
SAIC adds another mega-contract to build out their cloud computing business
SAIC’s seven-year, $1.3 billion T-Cloud contract officially cleared protests in June 2023. Under the contract, SAIC will act as the lead broker for Treasury to acquire cloud services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle to create a multi-cloud environment. This award was protested by Leidos and Booz Allen Hamilton, which have not been made public.
The FedSavvy Strategies Takeaway
- Booz Allen Hamilton’s EDITS win further demonstrates their dominance in FEDSIM procurements, as well as strong capabilities in technology development for defense applications.
- CACI’s FocusedFox win highlights their current success at NSA, and ability to transition large programs away from incumbents.
- CACI’s U.S. Air Force EITaaS win adds to an already strong Air Force portfolio, allowing them to greatly expand their customer presence.
- COLSA’s NSSC win builds upon its existing portfolio at NASA and represents a strong example of transitioning a large contract away from a long-term incumbent.
- Similarly, ERC expands its customer market share at NASA with a strong win against the incumbent.
- Jacobs’ defense of the COMET contract at NASA KSC shows their expertise in supporting space launch infrastructure and positions them as NASA’s largest services contractor.
- Leidos appears to be gaining momentum and defending its territory at CMS, as shown through its prime recompete win. The announcement of the subcontract awards may also signal the importance of Leidos’ increased presence at CMS and dominance in IT modernization bids.
- Peraton’s large wins this year at Interior and NOAA are significant, as these represent new customer footprints for the company.
- SAIC further demonstrates its supremacy in cloud contracts, especially those migrating and managing applications in a multi-cloud environment.
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