TurningPoint EIS Transition and Business Operations Support Services EIS Transition Services EIS-PLUS EIS-PLUS MBO Philip Moser Director, Business Development TurningPoint Global Solutions LLC Phil.Moser@tpgsi.com 301-284-7806 (office) 410-215-2047 (cell) www.tpgsi.com
Executive Summary The GSA s recently awarded Enterprise Information Services (EIS) contract will provide opportunities for Federal agencies to drive down telecom cost savings and to procure new technologies. Capitalizing on those opportunities, however, will require extensive planning and resource allocation against tight budgets and a compressed schedule. Based on prior telecom contract transitions, agencies will face a number of key challenges migrating to EIS and managing ongoing telecom business operations under the new contract. These include: Minimizing Transition Risks Implementing a timely transition will require additional staff expertise and tools to minimize risk of service disruptions, avoid duplicate and overlapping service charges, and comply with reporting mandates Managing Billing and Business Operations Under EIS, agencies will be unable to use GSA s Centralized Billing service unless they opt to utilize GSA s Full Service offering at a cost of 30% Controlling Costs and Telecom Expense Management Agencies will have continual pressure to lower telecom costs across the board, identify and prevent overpayments, operate with smaller budgets and fewer staff, and meet OMB governance mandates With over 15 years supporting federal agencies with complex contract transitions and ongoing business operations, TurningPoint is offering three levels of service specifically tailored to the EIS environment: EIS Transition Services, providing support for low-risk, on time, transition of assets and services EIS-Plus, which includes Centralized Billing and Telecom Expense Management (TEM) services for EIS and other contracts EIS-Plus MBO, our fully managed, outsourced, telecom business management service Agencies can benefit from these TurningPoint services as they: Are offered at rates significantly lower than that offered by GSA for Full Service operations Manage EIS and all other telecom contracts Will be tailored to meet each agency s operating environment Identify short term cost savings and ongoing cost avoidance through inventory and invoice audits TurningPoint s services also strengthen agencies abilities to respond to broader requirements such as coping with budget cuts, aligning with the Administration s push to identify overpayments, complying with OMB audit and reporting mandates, and compensating for resource and staffing constraints. In sum, TurningPoint provides comprehensive transition and telecom management services, for EIS and all other telecom contracts, at significantly lower prices than those offered by GSA for managed services- -enabling agencies to meet their short term transition objectives and more efficiently manage ongoing telecom operations. 2
Opportunities and Challenges with Transition to EIS The new General Services Administration (GSA) EIS contract will provide agencies across the federal government opportunities to streamline telecom services, reduce costs, and migrate to new technologies. Among other things, the new contract will allow agencies to consolidate services from across various existing contracts - including Networx, WITS3, and Local Service Agreements (LSAs) - and will provide an expansive list of available telecom service options from agency headquarters down through field offices. Agencies will thus be able to benefit from economies of scale leveraged across centralized and decentralized purchasing authorities. To fully benefit from the transition to EIS, agencies will need to undertake deliberate planning, analysis, cost comparisons, and systematic service cut-overs over the span of the next few years. Without careful upfront planning, agencies could encounter similar hurdles to those faced during the transition from FTS2001 to Networx challenges that have been well documented by GSA, GAO, agencies, and industry partners. Top among those prior challenges were two that must be addressed early in the transition process: Lack of comprehensive and up-todate inventory of services Limited technical expertise availability within agencies for transition planning activities 1 The transition to EIS will be more challenging than the one from FTS2001 to Networx. The EIS contract has greater complexity than Networx, covers a larger WHAT S THE BIG DEAL WITH INVENTORY? Collecting and validating an inventory of telecom services and devices would, at first glance, appear to be fairly straightforward. But two big challenges exist: 1. Because EIS mandates a competitive bid for services, agencies need a detailed understanding of current services to document requirements. 2.Doing so over a multi-year transition of contracts, new services, and new carriers, requires that inventory reporting go beyond a static data set to one that is dynamic and actionable. Dynamic inventory is a repository of telecom assets, devices, and services that is updated on a continual basis to reflect ongoing changes. Dynamic inventory is necessary to ensure no assets are missed and no assets are unnecessarily moved to a new contract. Actionable Inventory contains sufficient detail to allow an agency to develop specific service requirements, to issue competitive bid requests, and to place new orders. This requires inventory at the CLIN level, with data on circuit types, bandwidth, features, devices, and prices. 1 GAO-14-63 from December 2013 Report to Congressional Requestors on lessons learned from the transition to Networx. 3
volume of services, and has a goal of half the implementation time. EIS will also incorporate services and contracts down to the regional and local levels, expanding the scope and scale of services to be managed under the EIS umbrella. Beyond the specific EIS transition challenges, Agencies will face new obstacles with ongoing business operations, as the GSA evolves its business approach and drops support for basic Centralized Billing support. With a 30% price tag, the alternative GSA Full Service offering may be too costly for agencies facing budgetary pressures. TurningPoint: Unique Blend of Expertise, Tools, and Processes for EIS Support With a 15 year history supporting federal telecom management and contract transitions, TurningPoint is uniquely positioned to assist agencies in migrating to the EIS contract and with ongoing telecom business operations. TurningPoint has direct experience enabling multiple agencies to perform successful transitions from FTS2001 to Networx, and from WITS to WITS3. TurningPoint currently supports some of the largest consumers of Networx services, in automating, optimizing, and effectively managing the full scope of telecom services. TurningPoint is drawing on this experience to support EIS transition planning with specialized services and tools focused on inventory collection and validation. The Network Inventory and Optimization Solution (NiOS ), TurningPoint s proprietary TEM system, has built in safeguards, automation, and reporting for ensuring a low-risk, cost efficient, EIS transition. As a carrier-agnostic support resource, TurningPoint can assist agencies to prepare and review competitive bids for EIS task orders and fair opportunity assessments. An additional benefit of utilizing TurningPoint services for EIS transition planning is that, in the process, TurningPoint will typically identify near term cost savings ranging from 10% to 20% of annual telecom spend. 4
Figure 1: TurningPoint's NiOS platform enables agencies to streamline, automate, and govern telecom contract transition and business operation requirements TurningPoint EIS Support Services Details TurningPoint is offering three separate levels of service related to EIS. All the services are performed by our Subject Matter Experts and leverage our Web based software platform. 5
EIS Transition Support Inventory Management: Working with agency stakeholders, TurningPoint builds and manages a dynamic and actionable inventory data set. Data collection includes the GSA Transition Inventory (TI), carrier reports and invoices, and datasets from central and regional agency offices. Data is validated by comparing records across all available sources for quality of data and completeness. Data inconsistencies such as duplicate, redundant, conflicting and missing data are reconciled and a consolidated, normalized baseline is reviewed and approved. This baseline is loaded into NiOS to create a centralized database repository providing an enterprise-wide view and reporting of inventory. Fair Opportunity Data Collection: TurningPoint assists agencies in Fair Opportunity data collection and verifiying requirements for services and products slated for transition. The baseline inventory will include the CLIN and location level details needed for inclusion in the EIS contract solicitation, and not available in the GSA TI. Reports: TurningPoint will deliver both standard and agency customized reports focused in inventory count and cost, MACD changes, spending summaries and details, and detailed reports tracking the progress of transition and identifying any challenges. Utilizing NiOS, our reports can be scheduled, provided on-demand, or in response to ad-hoc data calls. Three Scenarios for EIS Contract Transition Agencies have three basic options for transitioning to the new EIS contract: 1. Simple Contract Upgrade to secure the same services from the same carriers. This is the most straight forward contract transition and can be done largely from the baseline, high-level inventory from GSA or the agency s carrier. The disadvantages of this type of transition is the challenge of meeting the competitive bidding mandate for any award greater than $3,500, and of limiting cost savings from new services. 2. Competitive, Like-for-Like, Bids to secure the same services from the best value carrier or set of carriers. Preparing for and awarding competitive bids will require a level of inventory detail that goes beyond a baseline or high-level inventory and draws data from multiple sources, including at the regional and local levels. 3. Technology Refresh to secure new and upgraded services from best value carriers. This requires detailed analysis of the As-Is inventory and requirements, knowledge of new EIS products, and a thorough analysis of the telecom market, technology, and the agency s future requirements. TurningPoint's EIS Transition offerings provide support for all of these options. Asset Tagging and Tracking: During the implementation, TurningPoint Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) mitigate the risks of service disruption due to accidental or premature disconnect, as well as optimize spend by disconnecting legacy assets at the earliest possible time. This is accomplished by our analysts who use NiOS functionality to a. Establish system linkages by relating a legacy asset with its EIS replacement 6
b. Create customizable tags to facilitate bulk MACD transactions as well as for tracking and reporting on transition status at the asset level c. Validate bills against services and inventory to ensure no disconnected services as still being billed and that new services are being properly billed EIS-PLUS Includes all the services offered for EIS transition, in addition to the following: Centralized Billing and Dispute Management: TurningPoint provides agencies a single validated bill of fees and charges across all carriers and across all contracts (Legacy GSA, commercial, EIS). Paper and electronic bills are collected and uploaded into NIOS. All charges and credits are automatically audited down to the UBI and CLIN level to validate: Service existence (Does it exist? Is it working?) Account ownership and billing account number (Who is paying?) Contract or quote price (Is the correct price being charged?) Policy (Is it compliant for agency/government?) TurningPoint performs root cause analysis using a system generated report clearly identifying billing discrepancies. For exceptions that cannot be reconciled, TurningPoint documents the issue with the service provider and, following agency guidelines, TurningPoint resolves the disputes. In addition, TurningPoint provides agencies dispute reports that track closed, newly opened, and pending disputes. Utilizing NiOS, TurningPoint s EIS-PLUS service strengthen s budget management processes by enabling agencies to continually track actual and projected spending against budgets, and to identify potential cost overruns. Agencies can accomplish automated budget management and cost allocation across complex agency budget codes, according to project identifiers, and using Agency Hierarchy Codes (AHC). Reporting: In addition to transition specific reporting, agency users have access to a role specific graphical dashboard, and a core set of NiOS reports for Inventory, Billing and Disputes. TurningPoint analysts can provide custom reporting and analysis, or authorized users can use the portal to schedule reports or run reports on demand. NiOS detailed reports allow users to group, sort, and filter data by multiple criteria. Help Desk: Agencies benefit from both the NiOS product and the TurningPoint staff. Administrative and telecom management support for agency financial and telecommunications account managers is available Monday Friday from between the hours of 8:00 a.m. 8:00 p.m. (Eastern Time). TurningPoint works with agency staff to review carrier invoices, identify and explain anomalies and exceptions, and identify and explain disputes and claim status. 7
EIS-PLUS MBO Includes all services under EIS PLUS, in addition to the following: Order Preparation: Agencies can rely on TurningPoint to provide fully outsourced, managed, telecom business operations, including request management, order fulfillment, and order approval workflow. As with our other services, this applies to EIS and all other telecom contracts. MACD service orders (new orders, upgrades, suspensions and disconnects) prepared by TurningPoint and approved by government authorized personnel, are sent electronically to the appropriate service provider. The centralized inventory database is updated as each MACD is processed so data consistency is continually maintained. This automation enables accurate, real time, reporting of counts, status, and costs to meet agency reporting requirements and data calls. MACD service orders are tracked to completion by TurningPoint. Fair Opportunity Procurement Support: In addition to providing data to develop Fair Opportunity requirements as part of Transition Support, TurningPoint s EIS-PLUS MBO offering assists agencies in developing and managing their Fair Opportunity procurement and award process and managing subsequent contracts This includes contract benchmarking, working with stakeholders to ensure all requirements are documented, and ensuring agencies comply with the GSA directed Fair Opportunity processes, and supporting evaluation of responses. Engineering Assistance: TurningPoint also offers engineering support for assessing new technology options, identifying alternative technologies to legacy services, and identifying ways to optimize network resources and services to drive down costs and simplify operations. SLA Monitoring: Order and Billing SLAs are monitored by TurningPoint for compliance with Contract Terms and Conditions. SLA exceptions are documented and submitted to the appropriate service provider(s) for credit and tracked to resolution. Network based SLA exceptions are documented by Operations but are processed and tracked to resolution by TurningPoint. Extended Help Desk: EIS-Plus MBO provides for a 24/7/365 day Help Desk staffed with personnel who have advanced skills, knowledge and experience in the federal telecom environment. Our staff will utilize our proven methodologies and the NiOS system to perform a fully managed telecom solution. 8
Appendix 1: TurningPoint Background and Past Performance Located in Rockville, MD, TurningPoint is a 500 person firm specializing in federal Telecommunications Expense and Lifecycle Management (TLM) solutions. During its 15 year history, TurningPoint has successfully managed over 50 federal and commercial contracts with values ranging up to $90 Million. Of the 43 individual federal customer contracts/task orders that we are currently delivering against, we serve as Prime on 41 of them. TurningPoint has deep experience working with Networx, WITS3, and Local Service Agreements (LSAs), to help agencies optimize their telecom business practices, strengthen governance compliancy, and reduce costs. TurningPoint has built, and continues to develop, the Network Inventory and Optimization Solution (NiOS) software platform specifically to address the requirements of U.S. federal agencies. We have been independently appraised at CMMI Maturity Level 3 for both Software Development and Services, have PMI certified professionals, and have a Top Secret Facility Clearance. TurningPoint s capabilities have been tested and field-proven through the successful delivery of telecom business solutions and services on a number of federal projects, including those at: Department of Veterans Affairs Social Security Administration Defense Health Agency U.S. Army Food and Drug Administration Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Department of Treasury GSA Networx Transition Contract Support for DHS/ICE and CPSC Department of Health and Human Services Telecommunications Inventory and Expense Management Solution (TIEMS) GSA FSSI for Mobility Lifecycle and Expense Management (ML&EM) Key Contracts: GSA Schedule 70: GS-35F-0528P NIO CIO-SP3: HHSN316201200183W NIO CIO-SP3: HHSN316201200103W Plus others 9