Tag: VETS2

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GSA Celebrates American Veterans

This Veterans Day, I’m contemplating GSA’s long history of working with service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB). I’m proud of the work they do every day to help agencies across the federal government achieve their mission.

Our Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) like VETS 2 demonstrate our ongoing commitment to our Veteran community – and I want to make sure I communicate clearly that we believe VETS 2 will continue its success and have a strong future as part of GSA’s suite of IT contract solutions for many years to come. We’re taking the necessary steps to execute the option period and doing all that we can to cement VETS 2’s future.

VETS 2: the right IT solutions, right now

In just 3 ½ years, VETS 2 has an estimated $1.87 billion value from 145 task order awards.

VETS 2 gives agency customers access to a wide variety of customized IT services and solutions. It also helps agencies receive SDVOSB credit toward their Small Business Procurement Scorecard and Best-in-Class (BIC) Tier 3 credit toward Spend Under Management goals.

The highly qualified companies on VETS 2 can complete almost any IT service requirement including agile software development, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and other emerging technologies.

SDVOSB pool on Polaris

In addition to our ongoing support for VETS 2, GSA is broadening opportunities for Veterans to work with the federal government. We recently announced a new contract pool for SDVOSB firms on Polaris, a new next-generation GWAC.

Polaris will bring more innovation to the small business community, federal agencies, and the acquisition workforce. This innovation will lead to substantial benefits for small businesses, improved technology for federal agencies, and greater flexibility for acquisition professionals across government.

Polaris will have 4 pools: small business, women-owned small business (WOSB), SDVOSB and businesses located in HUBZones. These pools will be awarded in phases to help our customers deliver on their missions and meet their socio-economic goals.

Our first priority is to release the request for proposals (RFP) for the small business and WOSB pools January 2022. The small business pool will be awarded first, later in the year. The HUBZone and SDVOSB RFPs and awards will follow.

Subscribe to our Small Business Community of Interest on GSA Interact to keep up to date.

Veterans help government through two GSA GWACs

We’re committed to the SDVOSB community. Together, VETS 2 and Polaris will deliver on our commitment to SDVOSBs. They’ll continue to deliver value for our customers well into the future and help ensure there will be no gap in access to SDVOSB contract offerings.

Find out more about VETS 2 and discover customer training opportunities at www.gsa.gov/vets2. Please send any questions to vets2@gsa.gov.

Additional information about Polaris can be found at www.gsa.gov/polaris. Please send any questions to polaris@gsa.gov.

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Veterans Technology Services 2 (VETS 2) GWAC Awarded

If small businesses are the backbone to our economy, then veterans of the armed forces are the backbone of our country. Even after their sacrifices through military service, many veterans continue to serve our great nation by providing innovative information technology (IT) solutions to government.

GSA prides itself on delivering mission critical IT solutions that make a meaningful difference to the agencies we support and the citizens that count on them. This philosophy is at the center of our development of new IT contract vehicles and I’m proud that it played a vital role as GSA created our new Veterans Technology Services 2 (VETS 2) Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC).

VETS 2 – a unique acquisition vehicle

The new VETS 2 GWAC is a unique contribution to the federal acquisition community — the only GWAC set-aside exclusively for Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB). VETS 2 is designed to be flexible enough to meet diverse agency IT requirements, including new and emerging technologies. VETS 2 also enables GSA to continue its support of the SDVOSB Procurement Program, while helping federal agencies achieve their socio-economic goals.

Contract development at its best

Lessons learned from our original VETS contract played a big role in building VETS 2, as did extensive market research. In conjunction with issuing a request for information (RFI) and draft request for proposal (RFP), we also surveyed hundreds of past and current GWAC ordering contracting officers, created a government customer working group, and utilized a GSA Interact page to collaborate with more than 1,000 members from industry and government to design VETS 2. The result is a multiple award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract with a best-in-class designation and 70 of the world’s premier SDVOSB IT service providers.

What’s new with VETS 2

All of the team’s research and due diligence, coupled with VETS success resulted in a VETS 2 contract that is even better than its predecessor. New key features include:

  • The ability for cost-type contracts
  • An expanded scope for virtually any IT services-based solution – including cybersecurity and new, emerging technologies
  • An overall simplified contract through the elimination of functional areas – a simplified scope covering all IT services
  • A larger pool of suppliers — an even greater proportion of which now hold International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) certifications, facility clearances levels, audited/approved cost accounting systems, and experience working with multiple agencies.

We couldn’t be more thrilled about the launch of VETS 2 as we continue our commitment to providing IT solutions with the ongoing help of the veteran community.

For more information, please visit www.gsa.gov/VETS2 or contact VETS2@gsa.gov.

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