Are You Ready for the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) IEP 2.0 Bid?

Facts At-a-Glance

Topic	Description
Name	Integrated Enterprise Portals (IEP 2.0)
Agency	Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Period of performance	8 years
Industry day	June 13, 2023
Request for Proposal (RFP)	November 2023 (estimate)
Value	$1.7B per the Industry Day
Contract type	Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA)
NAICS	541512 Computer Systems Design Services
Competition type	Per the Industry Day Q&A, IRS indicated it was still in the market research phase; therefore, the requirement does not yet contain a small business (SB) set aside. However, based on its current market research, IRS expects to include SB subcontracting goals.
Competition vehicle	GSA Schedule IT-70
Number of winners	Single award
Award date	April 2024
Incumbents	TIRNO17D00004, Accenture Federal Services
List of interested vendors	Published in the Industry Day Q&A document

IEP 2.0 Overview

The IEP is the front door to the IRS Enterprise systems/applications for users and plays a mission-critical role in serving taxpayers, tax preparers, and employees. IRS awarded the current IEP contract in 2017 as an 8-year contract with a $1.017B ceiling. The current IEP contractor provides a range of application development, hosting, security, and operations services for 90+ IRS business applications. Some of the IEP-hosted applications are mission-critical to the IRS and essential for delivering a successful filing season.

For IEP 2.0, the IRS seeks a qualified Managed Service Provider (MSP) to deliver, operate, and manage the IEP services. The IRS also requires the contractor to evolve IEP services, as IRS needs change. To accomplish these goals, the new IEP MSP contract must provide secure application hosting services and deliver the services using fully scalable, virtualized environments and cloud services that are dedicated to the IRS.

IEP resides on a virtualized hybrid cloud platform that is scalable, managed privately, and dedicated to the IRS for internal and external users. The platform supports a variety of performance and availability requirements with more than 99.99% availability and sub-second responses, even in the event of an unexpected disaster during peak tax season.

Table 1 summarizes the breadth of IEP 2.0 requirements.

Table 1: IEP 2.0 Performance Work Statement (PWS) from Modification #1 Dated June 12, 2023

Draft RFP Reference	Description
C.3.1	IEP Service and Program Integration Services
C.3.1.1	Program Management
C.3.1.2	Service Delivery
C.3.1.3	Service Integration Work Request Support
C.3.1.4	Support for IRS Enhanced Activities
C.3.2	IEP Infrastructure Services
C.3.2.1	Foundation
C.3.2.2	Reliability
C.3.2.3	Operation
C.3.2.4	Performance
C.3.2.5	Infrastructure Work Request Support
C.3.3	IEP Application Hosting Services
C.3.3.1	Application Hosting Support
C.3.3.2	Capacity Management
C.3.3.3	Incident Management
C.3.3.4	Problem Management
C.3.3.5	Monitoring
C.3.3.6	Application Infrastructure Integration Services (AIIS)
C.3.3.7	Configuration and Change Management
C.3.3.8	Service Catalog
C.3.3.9	Service Desk
C.3.3.10	Hosting Work Request Support
C.3.4	IEP Security Services
C.3.4.1	Security Risk Management Framework
C.3.4.2	Patch and Vulnerability Management
C.3.4.3	Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M)
C.3.4.4	Security Continuous Monitoring
C.3.4.5	Security Configuration and Change Management
C.3.4.6	Security Audit
C.3.4.7	Incident Handling
C.3.4.8	Business Continuity
C.3.4.9	Security Control Assessment and Contractor Security Assessment
C.3.4.10	Defensive Cyber Operations
C.3.4.11	Portal Applications Security
C.3.4.12	Security Policy
C.3.4.13	Security Work Request Support
C.3.5	IEP Application Services
C.3.5.1	Application Engineering Support Services
C.3.5.2	Web User Analysis Data Collection and Analytics
C.3.5.3	Application Infrastructure Services
C.3.5.4	Application Work Request Support
C.3.6	Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) Cloud Services
C.3.7	IEP Transition Services
C.3.7.1	IEP 2.0 Operational Transition
C.3.7.2	Transition from IEP 2.0 Operations
C.3.7.3	Transition Work Request Support

Timeline

Table 2 contains the estimated timeline for the RFP release and award.

Table 2: Timeline

Date	Activity
05/18/2023	Presolicitation
06/07/2023	Draft
06/07/2023	Sources Sought/RFI/Market Research
06/12/2023	Draft
06/13/2023	Industry Day/Site Visit/Conference
06/30/2023	Responses
11/2024	RFP Release (estimate)
04/2024	Award Date (estimate)

Cost and Challenges to Bid

IRS’ draft PWS does not contain instructions. However, the previous IEP RFP required a high level of effort to produce a response. Offerors had to pass the “go/no go” down-select process before they could move onto step 2, which required them to:

• Have an Earned Value Management System (EVMS)
• Have a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)-SW Level 3 certification
• Submit a pledge that all work is performed in the United States
• Have relevant corporate experience providing managed web portal services

Companies who survived the “go/no go” decision were given the opportunity to write an 8-volume proposal consisting of 250+ pages. These volumes covered the offeror’s technical, management, and transition approaches, their relevant experience and past performance, their small business participation and utilization plans, and their business and price proposals.

Developing the IEP 2.0 proposal will come with challenges. IEP 2.0 challenges the capture managers to acquire the best information to support solution development and pricing. IEP 2.0 challenges solution architects to create a solution that provides all labor, hardware, software, equipment, materials, communications, facilities, and IT infrastructure to deliver a transition that doesn’t interrupt ongoing operations. IEP 2.0 challenges proposal managers to manage the development of a high-scoring proposal using a large team of stakeholders across multiple proposal volumes.

Evaluation Criteria Summary

The IRS has not provided draft evaluation criteria for IEP 2.0 yet. However, on IEP (the current contract), we know IRS evaluated proposals using a two-step process. In step one, IRS eliminated proposals that did not meet its “go/no go” requirements. Those companies surviving step one could submit proposals aligned with the factors and evaluation criteria summarized in Table 3. IRS rated proposals on significant strengths, strengths, weaknesses, significant weaknesses, and deficiencies for each evaluated factor.

Table 3 Summary of Evaluation Factors

Factor	Evaluation Criteria Summary
Factor 1 – Technical Approach	A clear understanding of the PWS principal work areasA technical approach to satisfying the capabilities, requirements, constraints, performance objectives, performance measurements, and performance standards detailed in the PWSProposed technological innovationsHow the offeror addressed ownership, usage rights, and documentation transfer to the IRS or a subsequent party
Factor 2 – Management Approach	Demonstrated experience with project management disciplines and ability to optimize IEP’s operationsOrganizational structure and approval processesCommunications, risk, and subcontractor processesQuality Assurance PlanKey Personnel resumes
Factor 3 – Transition Approach	Ability to provide uninterrupted support at acceptable performance levels while assuming responsibilityProposed Transition Plan approach, schedule, organization, personnel, activities, and risks
Factor 4 – Relevant Experience	Experience with working on projects of similar size, scope, magnitude, and complexity as outlined in the PWS
Factor 5 – Past Performance	Recency, relevance, and performance of work
Factor 6 – Price	IRS evaluated offerors’ price rates and other direct costs to ensure they were complete, reasonable, and balanced

By Brenda Crist, Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting Group, MPA, CPP APMP Fellow

Lohfeld Consulting Group has proven results specializing in helping companies create winning captures and proposals. As the premier capture and proposal services consulting firm focused exclusively on government markets, we provide expert assistance to government contractors in Capture Planning and Strategy, Proposal Management and Writing, Capture and Proposal Process and Infrastructure, and Training. In the last 3 years, we’ve supported over 550 proposals winning more than $170B for our clients—including the Top 10 government contractors. Lohfeld Consulting Group is your “go-to” capture and proposal source! Start winning by contacting us at www.lohfeldconsulting.com and join us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.