December 03, 2009 - Special from The Beat
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The U.S. General Services Administration's bid solicitation for the next generation of its
E-Gov Travel Service--the online federal travel service that serves civilians--appears to have sparked interest from incumbent providers, as well as at least one newcomer.
Incumbent government contractors CW Government Travel (Carlson Wagonlit Sato Travel), Electronic Data Systems (now HP Enterprise Services) and Northrop Grumman Information Systems confirmed that they're interested in the next phase of the GSA's solicitation process.
Concur also is "absolutely" interested in the business, according to Scott Torrey, executive vice president of operations and general manager of Concur's Government Services. "We believe Concur's services and offerings match up well with the government's initiatives to drive down costs and increase the usability of the Travel and Expense services available to government agencies." Concur looks forward to "helping the GSA better understand the value of leveraging one seamless end-to-end travel and expense management process to help them manage business travel and T&E expenses," he added.
"Northrop Grumman is reviewing with interest GSA's draft statement of work for the ETS2 follow-on E-Gov Travel Service contract, and considering pursuit of this new opportunity," according to a prepared statement provided by a Northrop Grumman Information Systems spokeswoman. "For the past six years, Northrop Grumman has helped make this end-to-end travel solution a successful governmentwide federal travel exchange."
An HP spokesman said the company "remains interested in the program, but has concerns about many of the structural points of the new RFI." CW Sato Travel also remains interested in the business and process.
GSA's Statement Of Objectives
GSA last month posted to the FedBizOpps.gov Web site an 88-page "draft statement of objectives" for ETS2, the next version of the end-to-end travel system. Release of the draft followed an Oct. 30 "industry day," at which GSA detailed requirements for a "more customer friendly, reliable and secure service that will result in increased utilization of online travel booking and fulfillment at a reasonable cost." GSA is scheduled to issue an RFP for ETS2 in January 2010. GSA officials told vendors during the industry briefing that it could award the contract to two vendors, or perhaps just one. Consulting firm FedSources said the "estimated period of performance is 10 years with an estimated value of $1.3 billion."
Sources told
The Beat that GSA was likely to receive "reams" of comments about the solicitation that one source said "appears to shift much of the risk" to the technology contractor. GSA clearly stated that "the purpose of this firm, fixed price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract is to provide a highly usable, secure, self-service" and non-self service end-to-end travel management service hosted and operated by a commercial vendor and provided to the government via a secure web portal.
GSA in 2003 awarded a 10-year, $450 million contract for ETS to the three incumbents for their products: E2Solutions (CW Government Travel), FedTraveler.com (EDS) and GovTrip (Northrop Grumman Information Systems). But it was up to each federal agency to contract with one of the three or subcontract with another federal agency. GSA said "23 of 24 Business Reference Model agencies are either fully or partially deployed," and 38 other agencies are fully deployed. GSA identified 24 agents that generated more than 80 percent of travel vouchers as top priority BRM agencies as a means to measure adoption progress. "ETS processes over 170,000 travel vouchers each month and the current overall self-service adoption rate is greater than 75 percent," according to the draft SOO.
In a July presentation, GSA said 80-plus agencies awarded ETS task orders and 54 had fully deployed. Federal travel spending totaled $13.8 billion in 2008, including $9.1 billion for the Department of Defense and $4.7 billion by other agencies under the GSA travel program.
Current ETS contracts can be extended through November 2013. But GSA in its SOO statement of objectives forecast an initial launch for ETS2 in October 2010 by at least four BRM agencies, 15 by January 2011 and 24 by the end of the ETS contract in November 2013. "The contractor shall establish ETS2 full operational capability on or before December 31, 2011," stated the SOO. The reason to award contracts now, sources said, is to allow agencies to gradually transition and avoid last-minute migrations before the contract expires.
In the current ETS contract, GSA negotiated pricing for various periods during the 10 years. For the period between November 2008 and 2011, GSA negotiated price points for seven transactions, from the most basic self-service air, car or hotel booking at a low of $4 and high of $10.03 to a non-self-service international air or rail booking at a low of $29.74 and high of $37. Authorization and vouchering incur other fees, as do paper ticket issuance and various services.
Among vendor concerns, sources said, are the current and projected transaction volumes. While GSA officials referenced 3 million annual transactions during the October meeting and an earlier ETS milestone indicated 3.5 million voucher transactions as of fiscal year 2007, the SOO was revised to just 2.5 million at full adoption and utilization by civilian agencies. Combined, one source said he could identify no more than 1.4 million transactions as several large agencies only in recent months deployed ETS.
ETS was supposed to be fully deployed across all government agencies by September 2006. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Smithsonian issued task orders for ETS only in September 2009 and the Government Accountability Office issued its order in August, all to Northrop Grumman, according to GSA's Web site. Northrop Grumman in July noted that its version of ETS processed 117,495 local and temporary duty travel vouchers in March 2009, "representing a 277 percent increase from March 2008."
The draft SOO noted that "current data suggests that 75 percent of voucher transactions are for temporary duty travel, while 25 percent are for local travel. Of temporary duty travel vouchers, an estimated 70 percent require either traditional or online travel arrangement services, while 30 percent do not." Only 4 percent of the travel bookings are for lodging or car rental only, GSA said, and 95 percent involve air and/or rail ticketing.
Required Functionalities
Functionalities sought include those related to mobile devices, VIP travel, support of smart card authentication, embedded or accommodated travel management center fulfillment services and data reporting to either the government or a third-party provider. GSA also is looking for a vendor to use technology to reduce the carbon footprint associated with federal travel document preparation, storage and retrieval.
"ETS2 shall implement all federal travel processes including, but not limited to: independent travel planning and cost estimating, expeditious travel booking, creating routing and administration of travel authorizations, and streamlining the travel approval process, affecting all travel arrangements, filing/processing/approval of official travel claims including receipts, customer agency travel reporting (standard, custom and ad hoc reports), travel-related data exchange, and recordkeeping and disposition," the SOO stated.
Among the government's mandatory requirements are "development of secure interfaces" to customer agencies' legacy systems, without the ability distinguish between "standard" and "custom" interfaces. The government said it also expected a vendor to "take advantage of" new commercial capabilities and services to "maintain the technical adequacy of the ETS2 service."
Among the emerging services/enhancements that GSA would expect a vendor to accommodate are standards for temporary and permanent change of stations, relocation services, group travel and meetings management, self-service reservations for ship and bus travel, and protection of classified travel information, according to the SOO. An annual technology refresh of infrastructure hardware and software to "ensure continued reliability, improved speed, enhanced capacity and greater productivity and efficiency," also is expected.
The government also wants ETS2 to "easily compare and purchase a commercial market fare versus a government fare," include "adequate policy reinforcement features to ensure that" all government polices, rules and vendor contract provisions are updated "without the need for programming." The government also wants ETS2 to "warn an end user if a message to a TMC will convert" a booking from a self-service to a higher-cost, non-self-service transaction, as well as allow users to modify or cancel "reservations prior to ticket issuance without government incurrence of a transaction fee."
