After major acquisitions that have consolidated certain portions of the Federal market-share, including the Leidos acquisition of the Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions (IS&GS) subsidiary last year, and the announcement this year of UTC’s purchase of Rockwell Collins for $30 billion, creators of Federal procurement tools utilized by both agencies and contractors alike are now undergoing a similar phase of consolidation.
On the market intelligence side, Onvia announced on October 5th that it agreed to be purchased by Project Diamond Intermediate Holdings Corp, the parent company of Deltek. Onvia’s board of directors unanimously approved the $70 million cash deal to sell the “provider of sales intelligence and acceleration technologies for businesses selling to the public sector” to Deltek. This will privatize Onvia’s holdings, and per Deltek’s release, the merger will be used to strengthen the company’s GovWin IQ platform.
In another major change, this time affecting Federal procurement platforms, it was announced that Compusearch was purchasing FedBid for an as-yet undisclosed sum. Compusearch provides lifecycle procurement tools to Federal agencies which allow for a contracting officer to create, track, and evaluate contracts through a single piece of acquisition software. FedBid provides “reverse auction” procurement services to Federal agencies, allowing for agencies to choose products and services based on bids made by contractors on the FedBid platform. This “reverse auction” process means that contractor bids are driven lower, rather than higher like in a traditional auction.
FedBid has faced controversy in the Federal space, beginning with a Veterans Administration Office of Inspector General (VA OIG) report in 2014 which described a series of missteps involving FedBid and officials at the VA which included, “allegedly committing procurement fraud, lying to investigators, retaliating against whistleblowers and misusing agency resources.” The VA OIG referred the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ), who deferred any action back to the VA, according to the report. After the report was released, FedBid faced a nearly month-long debarment by the US Air Force in January 2015, before reaching an “administrative agreement” with the Air Force the next month.
Despite those hiccups, FedBid has continued to win contracts from Federal agencies for reverse auction services. After winning a new 5-year contract this year with the US Army, FedBid stated that the Army alone has awarded over $3.2 billion in contracting awards through the FedBid platform in the last 12 years.
With the number of market intelligence platforms shrinking, it is more important than ever to understand and compare the advantages that these services hold for contractors breaking into the Federal, state, and local procurement spaces. Sign up for a free trial today for a glimpse at how EZGovOpps will allow you to follow procurement trends, produce personalized opportunity forecasts, and receive custom analyst-updates for a complete understanding of the Federal contracting market today.
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