North pole reindeer won’t be the only thing you think of when you hear the word comet this season—GSA has plans in FY 2024 for version 2 of COMET, a multiple award Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for IT modernization, transformation, and operations/maintenance. COMET, which stands for CIO Modernization and Enterprise Transformation, has awarded task orders totaling almost $1 billion, making it a great success for GSA and all contractors involved, especially when it comes to updating GSA’s legacy systems. GSA wants to continue the success with COMET 2, but make it larger and improve upon certain lessons learned. Here’s what we know so far about COMET 2 and how GSA plans to further the impact of this vehicle.
Background On COMET
First, let’s talk about GSA’s current COMET and the background of this vehicle. Since COMET began in 2019, GSA has awarded 21 task orders totaling over $950 million. When COMET was first introduced, the primary goal was modernization and focus on using a cloud smart strategy. Through COMET, they have learned how to move things to the cloud, understand zero trust architecture, and are now practicing and refining these processes.
Throughout the lifetime of this BPA, GSA and the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) have gone through several initiatives including GSAFleet.gov, Personal Property Management System, Supply Chain and NSN Management, FAS Catalog Platform, Cloud Information Center and SAM.gov updates.
These initiatives have been carried out using the FAS Cloud Services modernization ecosystem made possible from vendors involved in the COMET BPA. Since the period of performance for COMET ends in 2024, GSA wants to keep the vehicle going with COMET 2, which we’ll dive into below.
COMET 2: What We Know So Far
GSA plans to continue to provide transformation and modernization IT services to help update GSA’s legacy systems in COMET 2, but also expand the vehicle so there will be a larger ceiling and possibly more vendors. The ceiling is anticipated to be over $1 billion. IT services within COMET 2 may include application development and maintenance, systems engineering and integration, Cloud computing services, cybersecurity services, data analytics services, and training and support, but GSA has yet to solidify the list.
So far, COMET 2 has garnered a lot of interest from the IT vendor community. GSA hosted an industry day for COMET in September with over 750 registrants and 400 companies in attendance.
With COMET 2, GSA is looking for partners who understand the basic principles of zero trust architecture, especially at the application level. Since GSA is pretty far along with zero trust implementation (100% implemented for users and devices and considerable maturity for data and applications), they’ll prefer vendors who can understand application level security.
From what we know so far, COMET 2 will provide awards to both small businesses and other than small businesses (OTSBs). One question industry wants answered is how small businesses will be evaluated. In the current COMET, two of the four small business award winners sized out of the contract quickly because they performed so well, and GSA had to acquire more small businesses to continue to meet requirements.
COMET 2 Timeline
This is always a burning question (and often unanswered) for contractors, but what will the timeline be for COMET 2? We know any timeline GSA or other agencies give us is a rough draft and can be pushed back considerably, but here’s what GSA has planned so far shown at the Industry Day:
As you can see, the solicitation will be a multi-phased process and will carry on potentially from Feb-June 2024, and the awards are anticipated to be completed in the Q4 timeframe.
Preparing for Future Contracting Opportunities
We know it’s both exciting and daunting to see new opportunities pop-up, especially new contract vehicles. We’ll continue to monitor COMET 2 and other upcoming vehicles so you can stay updated on all things related to GSA news and contracting insights.
In the meantime, you can focus on making sure you are successfully maintaining your GSA Schedule and following best marketing practices. It’s important if you have any changes in your contract from your address to prices, product/service additions/deletions or even just updating your solutions, that you get a head start on it now. GSA Schedule modifications can take awhile and you want to be prepared for when this solicitation is officially released.
Of course, our consultants are here to help direct you if you are interested in pursuing COMET 2 or other contract vehicles, or if you need help managing your GSA Schedule.
