NITAAC is an Executive Agent established through NIH for the purpose of federal IT procurement. (Courtesy of NIH)
In prior articles, EZGovOpps has covered the history and advantages of Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) including NASA SEWP – Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement – and Chief Information Officer – Solutions and Partners 3 Small Business (CIO-SP3 SB). Recently, the NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) announced new, lower contract access fees for agencies to use the GWAC, as well as a fee cap of $70,000 for any order in excess of $20 million through the CIO-CS vehicle.
CIO-SP3 SB – A Successful Small-Business Vehicle
CIO-SP3 SB, the small-business vehicle and one of 3 vehicles in the CIO-SP3 program, was created “to provide custom information technology (IT) solutions and services from small businesses across 5 socioeconomic categories.” This vehicle has already seen great success since its original awarding in 2012, with many small businesses outgrowing their SB status in the course of providing CIO-SP3 services. In an effort to grow the SB GWAC’s use even more, NITAAC has lowered the contract access fees from .75% all the way down to .55%. This, combined with a 2016 on-ramp opportunity for more small businesses to join CIO-SP3, is being seen as an effort by NITAAC to compete with other GWACs like SEWP, as well as GSA’s IT Schedule 70, which has not seen a fee cap reduction in over a decade.
CIO-SP3 is continuing to pick-up steam as a competing GWAC, with the Department of Veteran’s Affairs announcing in 2016 the decision to use CIO-SP3 for the VA “Enterprise Cloud Services for IT Infrastructure Modernization,” in part because NITAAC included Health IT as a specific service area in the GWAC. Other service areas include:
- Chief Information Officer (CIO) Support
- Imaging
- Outsourcing
- IT Operations and Maintenance
- Integration Services
- Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Assurance
- Digital Government
- Enterprise Resource Planning
- And Software Development
As Health IT continues to grow as an industry, and more agencies begin to look for cloud services, CIO-SP3 will present a major opportunity for small businesses looking to take advantage of these growing Federal IT trends. Although the NITAAC e-GOS portal is not accessible to the public, companies who missed the latest CIO-SP3 SB on-ramp opportunity can still utilize EZGovOpps in searching for task order reporting, prime contract holders, and exclusive program updates, allowing for teaming opportunities and better intel for future on-ramp openings.
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