Task orders are quickly becoming the preferred way to do business between government agencies and the public sector. Last week, CGI Federal Vice President Jim Fraser was joined by Deniece Peterson, Manager of Industry Analysis at INPUT to present their insights into $142 billion in Task Order vehicles during GovWin's free webinar, "CGI Federal Task Order Management Best Practices."

View the complete archived Webinar below, and keep reading for a summary of key points:

Peterson began the informational seminar with good news. Based on historical data since 1993, federal IT spending has continually exceeded the President's request for all but three years and "IT spending will probably grow" in 2011. That's based on several signs observed by Peterson that include comments by U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra; several current indicators; and recent acquisition reforms that are intended to free up more money to "invest more in 'mission-critical' IT."

The landscape for winning and managing those task orders has changed too. Agencies are looking to refresh their vendor pools with new competition while increasing the level of transparency for the public and GAO scrutiny. Additionally, an increased focus on task order vehicles is creating a "win or die" environment, where consolidated vehicles result in fewer opportunities to do work directly with an agency. This has also led to an increase in bid protests, and particularly on task orders over $10 million (which were made allowable in May 2008, up for renewal in 2011).

"We've also seen a decrease in the amount of protests that are sustained," said Peterson. "In other words, [we've seen a decrease in the number of protests that result in a ruling that] found that a procurement agency violated a procurement rule. Also we've seen an increase in the effectiveness rate, which is a percentage of time that the protestor sees some relief from the agency." And with protests rising 73 percent from 2006-2010, their use is becoming a norm in the industry.

Peterson says that the reason for the rise in protests is shared: "...contracts are bigger, more complex, and sometimes government contracting officials are making mistakes." Yet on the same topic Peterson says that, "I've heard anecdotally, more than one time, that protests are slowly becoming part of the capture strategy for companies who have decided to protest even before the awards are announced."

While task orders aren't a new way to create vehicles, their versatility has quickly become the preferred tool of many government agencies. For good reason, task orders can help agencies merge several existing contacts into one, or be used to break apart larger contracts into smaller IDIQs. They're also cheaper than GSA schedules, historically have seen less scrutiny from the GAO and offer agencies more confidence in their vendor selection (since many agencies control their task order vehicles and their vendor selections).

Major task order opportunities will continue to exist and grow in 2011: Of the INPUT Top 20 Federal Business Opportunities for FY2011 totaling $142 billion, 17 are Multiple Award IDIQ task order programs and 90 percent of those are recompletes.

U.S. CIO Kundra also changed the landscape for IT vendors with his "25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management," which sets technology goals that focus on cloud-like services offerings, stronger program management, aligning the budget process with the technology cycle and increasing accountability. Such changes require vendors to think beyond the bid/no-bid decision.

Faster, more agile companies with sound bidding and processes in place will undoubtedly be favored for winning the lion's share of IT dollars. INPUT asked 8,500 participants how quickly they respond to proposals and 75.9 percent answered in under seven days, with the majority (45.3 percent) answering in 3-5 days. That means companies will need to improve the speed in which they notify their subcontractors or find suitable new subcontractors before submitting their bid.

CGI Federal's Experience Managing Task Orders

CGI Federal's Jim Fraser attested to the importance of rapid task order execution by providing examples from CGI Federal. When he took his role roughly 10 months ago, he decided to develop a GWAC solution that would allow his company to bid more and win more. He needed an off-the-shelf system that could "quickly summarize an opportunity, populate to a database and automatically distribute to internal and external partners." Previously, an internal system would automatically email internal and external partners, resulting in clogged email boxes with large attachments, which prompted many complaint calls. CGI Federal needed something better.

After looking, Fraser discovered that GovWin was the ideal solution. "In that 10 month time frame, we would probably still be working on an internal solution." GovWin Task Order Management allowed CGI Federal to find the right current partners to bid with, along with thousands of potential new partners with niche abilities. And when Fraser's group was asked to incorporate several new recording requirements to track bids, wins and new agency opportunities, GovWin worked with the company to develop a solution.

Many companies decide that building a complex and costly bid tracking system is just part of doing business. "Instead, by having GovWin, [CGI Federal] met our goal to win more business," says Fraser, who says that CGI Federal "plans to continue to work with GovWin" for task order management and other solutions.