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From a Customer Perspective...

NITAAC:NIH IT Acquisition & Assessment Center

From A Customer Perspective

By Jeff Erlichman

Use NITAAC GWACs – ECS III, CIO-SP2i or IW2nd – the next time your program needs IT products and/or services.

Call 1-888-773-6542 the next time your program needs IT products and/or services. Or if for some reason, you can’t make the call, then send an e-mail to NITAAChelpdesk@mail.nih.gov.

Answering your call or email will be a knowledgeable member of the NITAAC customer support team – a customer service professional who is there all day, every business day – trained to help you.

He or she will get you the answers to any and all of your questions regarding using NITAAC IT Government-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) to fulfill your next IT product or service need.

“We want NITAAC to be the IT provider for the federal government and provide the best customer service possible,” declared Wanda F. Russell, Acting Program Director for
NITAAC in a recent interview with 1105 Government Information Group Custom Media.

“A lot of times we get boxed in because people think we only support HHS, but we provide IT products and services to the entire federal government,” emphasized Russell. “We are a general IT contract with components of health IT within it and we are focused on customer service.”

NITAAC may be housed in HHS, but NITAAC GWACs are authorized by law for use by all government agencies. As one of the select few agencies authorized to administer a GWAC, NITAAC currently has these IT contracts in place:

ECS III (Electronic Commodities Store III)

Authorized through November 25, 2012, ECS III offers computer hardware and software that allows government users the ability to configure systems for their specific needs. Hardware, software, maintenance, training, and documentation are available to satisfy your agency’s desktop computing needs. ECS III provides network equipment and accessories to meet the needs of any federal agency’s LAN/WAN infrastructure. In addition, it provides UNIX-based workstations and support equipment to meet a broad range of computational
requirements. (Attention HHS IT buyers: ECS III has been designated as a strategic source for COTS IT. For more information contact the NITAAC Help Desk.)

CIO-SP2i
(Chief Information Officer Solutions and Partners 2 Innovations)
Authorized through December 20, 2010, CIO-SP2i provides infrastructure and information assurance, IT operations and maintenance and CIO support in 9 task area categories including: CIO support; outsourcing; operations and maintenance; integration services; Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Assurance; digital government; ERP; clinical support, Research, and Studies; and software development.

IW2nd (ImageWorld 2 New Dimensions)

Authorized through December 20, 2010, IW2nd offers all necessary imaging technology for business, medical sciences and geographic information systems.

Succession Planning

Both CIO-SP2i and IW2nd expire on December 20, 2010. On August 4, 2009, Russell said NITAAC posted on FedBizOpps a Sources Sought announcement and Draft RFP for its
potential future Chief Information Officer - Solutions and Partners 3 (CIO-SP3) GWAC.

Russell further said NITAAC intends to solicit a second GWAC that will be set-aside for small business with essentially the same scope as in CIO-SP3.

While a separate Sources Sought announcement will be issued for the CIO-SP3 Small Business GWAC, NITAAC does not intend to issue a draft RFP for that GWAC said Russell.

Russell further noted that while all of the above present and future contracts are administered by HHS/NIH, the scope and breadth of IT services offered goes far and beyond IT for health applications.

Getting Even Better

As a GWAC, NITAAC contracts are open to everyone in government providing full service solutions for general and specialized computing needs.

Having been in place since the mid-1990s, NITAAC contract vehicles are tried and true said Russell. “They have been around for a while and have a proven history of supporting our customers.”

Use NITAAC to purchase with your ARRA IT dollars. Current contracts fit the time periods perfectly and are not tied to FYs. Check out these firm-fixed contracts perfect for your ARRA IT dollars at http://nitaac.nih.gov/index.asp.

Having a proven track record over time is nice, but track records do not service the present needs of customers. The NITAAC team is acutely aware of that and they are working hard to get even closer to their customers.

“We want to let the customers and the vendor community to know that we are listening,” Russell said. “We are listening to their suggestions and going through continuous process improvement and trying to implement some of their suggestions.”

While increasing their emphasis on being focused externally towards the customer, Russell noted that NITAAC is also looking internally at ways processes and operations can be improved. 

“We are using Lean Six Sigma within the NITAAC program. Russell is also attending leadership development courses at American University where she working with and learning from leaders from other government agencies.

Further, NITAAC Deputy Program Director Rob Coen has made great strides over the last six months helping NITAAC re-focus the organization to be even more customer focused. (See Sidebar)

Look for Russell, Coen and the NITAAC team to work even harder to be even closer with you in the future.

Reaching Out

Rob Coen is the NITAAC Deputy Program Director.

He left the Small Business Administration to join NITAAC six months ago. He is one of the professionals brought in to help guide the growth of NITAAC.

In a recent interview, Coen told 1105 Government Information Group Custom Media that in his six months he has gotten a good understanding of the organization. This knowledge has helped him guide NITAAC to adopt a new business model that emphasizes an organization that is focused first outward to the customer.

Since coming on board, Coen has been able to refocus and redouble NITAAC efforts to reach out to customers to promote the benefits of using NITAAC GWACs.

“We brought on a new business development team to go and do aggressive marketing and outreach and train the acquisition shops throughout the government about our contract and how agencies can use it to fulfill their IT requirements,” said Coen.

“We try to make it easy for the customer and as quick as possible for the customer to get their requirements filled,” Coen declared.

For all our contracts the task and delivery orders can be fulfilled electronically said Coen. Customers can search for products; send out requests for vendors to bid on; and do the award all online providing using systems designed to make NITAAC a more customer service oriented organization.

“Everything we do we look at it from a customer perspective,” explained Coen.

This fall customers should look for a NITAAC rebranding effort with new marketing materials and a redesigned website.

Coen calls this rollout  a whole new look and feel for our organization; one that looks and is more of a customer driven organization; one that is here to meet the needs of the customers and make it easy for them to use these contracts.

“From equipment through services, we can fulfill all their IT needs through our contracts – but customers throughout government just need to know about them.”

Maybe now, customers will.