HomeBusiness Resources...Evolve IDIQ – Frequently Asked Questions

# 									Evolve IDIQ – Frequently Asked Questions							

        - What is Evolve?
        - Why Evolve?
        - What are Evolve’s Objectives?
        - What are Evolve’s Technical Objectives?
        - What is the Evolve Period of Performance?
        - What is expected of Industry Partnerships?
        - What are the Functional Categories for Requirements?
        - What are the Competition Rules?
        - What are the Small Business Impacts with Evolve?
        - How does Evolve meet diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) objectives?
        - What is the current status of Evolve?

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## What is Evolve?

Department of State multiple-award, Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) acquisition program for IT services with a goal of improving the Department’s security posture and promoting innovation and IT modernization across the organization. This will help to eliminate duplication, leverage economies of scale, and centralize management of IT services under one vehicle.

Please visit sam.gov for current information and documentation on the program.

## Why Evolve?

Secretary Blinken committed to leaving behind a State Department that is organized and equipped to meet the tests of the 21st century. Rapid changes in technology are transforming how our diplomats advance U.S. foreign policy by altering the way we connect with others and communicate information. In the midst of a cyberwar, our diplomats require powerful, resilient new technologies to advocate policy positions, promote awareness and enhance transparency on behalf of the American people.

The Evolve acquisition enables State Department to buy technology services from companies with proven track records to implement Secretary Blinken’s modernization agenda. We will leverage Evolve to:
        - (Pillar #1) build our capacity and expertise in areas that will be critical to our national security in the years ahead, particularly for cyber security and emerging technologies.
        - (Pillar #2) modernize our technology, our communications, and our analytical capabilities.
        - (Pillar #3) provide better, accessible tools and infrastructure for our diplomats and staff to do their jobs flexibly, efficiently, securely, from Washington and from the field, and
        - (Pillar #4) use technology, innovation, and data to solve foreign policy challenges.

## What are Evolve’s Objectives?

Overall objective is to foster innovative, effective, and interconnected diplomacy by constantly improving, evolving, and refreshing tools and services in a manner that supports national interests and provides the best value to the American people. Evolve will allow department technology to work better for democracy. Evolve reduces risk to mission and risk to personnel.
        - Building and maintaining the computer systems State Department needs to advance foreign policy interests – uniting allies, confronting adversaries, and protecting our citizens.
        - Keeping our information safe from hackers and other cyberthreats to avoid situations like SolarWinds.
        - Using the massive amount of data we have to make better decisions and be more transparent with the American people.
        - Operating the information highways we need globally to safely and securely send data from one place to another.
        - Continuously looking for opportunities to improve processes, provide a better customer experience to our citizens and a flexible working environment for our employees.

## What are Evolve’s Technical Objectives?

        - Operate and maintain continuity of operations and meeting system availability, customer satisfaction, performance, security compliance, support desk performance requirements.
        - Provide support services required to design, develop, and deliver key enhancements, modernization initiatives, and new services, while meeting schedule, cost, and quality performance metrics.
        - Provide deployment/sustainment communications and training to domestic bureaus and overseas posts, meeting customer satisfaction and quality performance metrics.
        - Leverage multiple cloud technologies and advanced analytics capabilities to identify opportunities and recommend changes to business practices to improve information technology service delivery outcomes for the Department.
        - Identify, develop, and advance the IRM vision and strategic plan to reform IT acquisitions by bringing industry standard best practices and driving innovations.

## What is the Evolve Period of Performance?

Evolve will have a five (5) to seven (7) year Period of Performance (POP).

## What is expected of Industry Partnerships?

Industry input shaped the acquisition strategy and industry partnerships are critical to success. To ensure DOS mission success, all awarded vendors must work together to share information, data, technical knowledge, expertise and/or resources.

## What are the Functional Categories for Requirements?

### IT Management Services

Includes IT Portfolio Management, Architecture, and Cybersecurity & Compliance categories of requirements.

### Network & Telecommunications Services

Includes voice and data network, and supporting services such as load balancing, domain services, VPN, Intranet, Radio services, and RIMC network support.

### Cloud & Data Center Services

Includes internal and external cloud services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and Data Center and their supported services.

### Application Development Services

Includes software application development, testing, release, support, and operations.

### Customer & End User Support Services

Includes support for end users and mobile computing devices.

## What are the Competition Rules?

        - IT Management Category vendors may not deliver services in any other category.
        - IT Management vendors also may not have partnerships or subcontracts with vendors providing services in any of the other functional categories.

## What are the Small Business Impacts with Evolve?

        - The Department, in collaboration with the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) has taken several steps to maximize small and disadvantaged business opportunities within the Evolve acquisition.
        - Evolve will not negatively impact work currently performed by small businesses. The Department anticipates that small businesses will receive a greater amount and percentage share of the overall contract value total under Evolve than they currently receive.
        - Evolve encourages all offerors to propose subcontracting plans that align with Department small business utilization goals and has stringent pass/fail small business commitment requirements for all large business offerors.
        - Existing IT services work performed via contracts in the 8(a) program will remain in the 8(a) program outside of Evolve.
        - Specific small business concerns can be directed to the  Department OSDBU
        - Access the Department’s Procurement Forecast

## How does Evolve meet diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) objectives?

The Departments “Agency Equity Action Plan” was developed in response to President Biden’s January 20, 2021 Executive Order (E.O.) 13985.

The Evolve program executes the core tenants of the “Embedding Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities in the State Department’s Procurement, Contracts, and Grants” initiative within the Department’s Equity Action Plan through the following actions: simplifying procurement language and complexity; not adversely rating offerors due to a lack of past performance, and; providing ample set-asides within functional categories and including small and disadvantaged subcontracting goals for other-than-small business offerors.

## What is the current status of Evolve?

On July 8th, 2022, the Department of State issued a Request for Information (RFI). The purpose of this RFI was to: (1) Provide the revised draft Evolve Request for Proposals (RFP) for industry review (this RFP has incorporated the feedback received during the initial RFI/draft RFP release in 2021); (2) Solicit recommendations and additional industry questions for RFP refinement; (3) Announce a live Q&A listening session.

See the RFI announcement and associated documents for complete Evolve IDIQ information on sam.gov 

The Evolve team conducted listening sessions on Jul 26, 2022, and August 10, 2022, to engage with Industry on the program prior to release of the final RFP, and to engage specifically with the small business community. The slides for both events are available on the **U.S. Department of State Industry Liaison page on LinkedIn**, and the recordings are available on **vimeo**.

A complete set of Questions and Answers (Q&A) to the Evolve IDIQ were posted to sam.gov on September 7th, 2022.

Please direct any inquiries regarding Evolve to evolve@state.gov.

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