1. Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN)
An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.
2. Definition of the requirement
The Department of National Defence (DND) has a requirement for IT and Executive Research and Advisory services that includes access to an online research platform that provides a focus on a variety of domains critical to defence. This platform must provide immediate, licensed access to a source of unbiased intellectual property (IP) that will be used to support defence capability assessment and development. Resources available through this platform will include research reports, market and capability guides, vendor assessments, and reference architecture blueprints. Along with this research material, DND has a requirement for toolkits to support: technical document development, vendor assessment, capability assessment and benchmarking, and leadership diagnostics.
Research subscription licenses provide the entry point for the DND/CAF to equip various technology and business leadership personnel with role-specific resources and tools needed to execute their mission-focused objectives. Subscription license products are required for various organizational tiers and roles within DND/CAF, including products that provide research topic coverage of non-technology business domains such as supply chain, operations management, HR, finance, product management, strategic management, and procurement. DND/CAF requires these research subscription licenses to gain access to these resources and tools as well as obtain varying levels of access to the subject matter experts who author the research IP and executive peer advisors whose partnership is included as a solution feature of certain subscription licenses.
The subscription options that will be available under this contract are:
1. Strategic IT & Business Executive Leader (Team-Based)
2. Strategic IT & Business IT Executive Senior Member (Team-Based)
3. Strategic IT & Business Executive Data & Analytics (D&A) Member (Team-Based)
4. Strategic IT & Business Executive Advisor Member (Team-Based)
5. IT Executive Leader (Team-Based)
6. IT Executive Advisor Member (Team-Based)
7. CIO Executive (Individual Subscription)
8. IT Individual Members (Individual Subscription)
9. Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO)(Individual)
10. Supply Chain Senior Leader (Individual)
11. Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Executive (individual)
12. Technical Staff (Department, up to 40 users)
3. Criteria for assessment of the Statement of Capabilities (Minimum Essential Requirements)
Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that it meets the following requirements:
3.1 Experience requirements:
Any interested supplier must have a minimum of 60 months of experience within the last 60 months providing research subscription license products that provide immediate access to a source of intellectual property (IP) published to an online platform. An interested supplier must demonstrate that their subscription services included the minimum requirements outlined in 3.2.
3.2 Subscription Services Requirements:
DND/CAF’s defined needs for research and tools require the following overarching capabilities from research subscription license products:
1. Research Access: Access to objective and unbiased research is defined as: a trusted research program with no presence of financially incentivized research practices, including research reports sponsored by a specific vendor or promotional white papers commissioned by a third party. Access to a research program that produces a minimum of 2,500 new research documents per year. With a focus on the defence industry and technological evolutions in the defence sector.
2. Digital Capability Maturity Assessment Tools: Access to unbiased self-serve maturity assessment tools that assess maturity levels in digital capabilities and technology. The tool must allow an organization to benchmark itself against other organizations in key categories such as: priorities, operating model, technology platform and performance. The tool must generate a report that outlines the current maturity levels and identify gaps based on benchmarking data. Benchmarking metrics must have been collected from at least 1000 sources.
3. Strategic Advisor: Access to a dedicated strategic advisor that has a minimum of 10+ years’ experience within the Defense industry, to support the use and implementation of any used Research or Tools.
4. Subject Matter Experts (SME): Contractor must have a minimum of 25 Fulltime SMEs in each of the below fields, averaging 120 months working in the field of experience within their domain of research experience, accessible to discuss the licensed Research and Assessment Tools:
a. Data and Analytics (D&A);
b. Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation;
c. Enterprise Applications;
d. Infrastructure and Operations (I&O);
e. Secure Infrastructure (IAM and App/Data Security) and Security Leadership (CISO, Risk Management, Program Management);
f. Software Engineering;
g. Sourcing, Procurement and Vendor Management; and,
h. Supply Chain.
5. Conferences: Access through the subscription to conferences focused on defense technology. There must be a minimum of ten (10) conferences made available annually. All conferences must be a minimum of two full days, held in North America and deliver an in-person experience focused on summarizing research in a particular domain of an enterprise, particularly in technology.
6. Webinars: Complementary access to webinars made available to all subscription holders. Must offer a minimum of 25 webinars over a year.
7. Peer Networking: Access to an interactive online peer networking platform focused on technology research and innovation that enables independent peer-to-peer discussions and connections with a minimum network of over 50,000 participants.
8. License Flexibility: DND/CAF has evolving needs for research subscriptions and therefore requires the right to add or transfer subscriptions over the course of the agreement.
4. Unbiased Research and Digital Capability Maturity Assessment Tools
Unbiased Research and Digital Capability Maturity Assessment tools are defined as research and materials/tools with no presence of financially incentivized practices, including research reports sponsored by a specific vendor or promotional white papers commissioned by a third party. The material must also be the intellectual property of the contractor given its intended purpose and use in support of DND/CAF operations.
5. Applicability of the trade agreement(s) to the procurement
This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement(s)
a. Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA)
b. Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA)
c. Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
d. Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement
e. Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement
f. Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement
g. Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA)
h. Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA)
6. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier
The pre-identified contractor, Gartner Canada Co., is the current incumbent of non-competitive NMSO NMSO E60PI-20DATA/004/PI that provides these subscriptions and has been chosen due to their unique qualifications and capabilities that align with the requirements of this procurement. Specifically, Gartner is believed to be the only contractor capable of providing the comprehensive range of IT research and advisory support requested by DND/CAF. The combination of Gartner's extensive experience, suite of tools, access to resources and advisors/experts, make them uniquely qualified to meet the needs of the Department of National Defence.
7. Government Contracts Regulations Exception(s)
The following exception to the Government Contracts Regulations is invoked for this procurement under subsection 6(d) - "only one person is capable of performing the work".
8. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons
The following exclusion(s) and/or limited tendering reasons are invoked under the:
a. Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) – Article 513 b (iv); and,
b. Revised World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP): Article XIII — Limited Tendering 1.b.ii.
9. Period of the proposed contract or delivery date
31 January 2025 to 28 January 2028
10. Cost estimate of the proposed contract
The limitation of expenditure for this agreement is $2,500,000 (Taxes Included).
11. Name and address of the pre-identified supplier
Contractor Name: Gartner Canada Co.
Address: Gartner Canada Co. of One Yonge Street, 16th Floor, Suite 1600, Toronto ON M5E 1E5
12. Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities
Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods and services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.
13. Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities
The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is Jan 27, 2025, at 2:00 pm EDT.
14. Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities
Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:
Joey Patton
Department of National Defence
101 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 1K2
E-mail address: joey.patton@forces.gc.ca
