1) "Best Value" procurement methods are authorized by N.C.G.S. §143-135.9. The award decision is made based on multiple factors, including: total cost of ownership, meaning the cost of acquiring, operating, maintaining, and supporting a product or service over its projected lifetime; the evaluated technical merit of the Vendor's offer; the Vendor's past performance; and the evaluated probability of performing the requirements stated in the solicitation on time, with high quality, and in a manner that accomplishes the stated business objectives and maintains industry standards compliance. The intent of "Best Value" Information Technology procurement is to enable Vendors to offer and the Agency to select the most appropriate solution to meet the business objectives defined in the solicitation and to keep all parties focused on the desired outcome of a procurement. Evaluation shall also include compliance with information technology project management policies, compliance with information technology security standards and policies, substantial conformity with the specifications, and other conditions set forth in the solicitation.
2) Source selection. A one-step procurement process shall be used. Vendors shall submit offers combining technical and price information together. A trade-off/ranking method of source selection will be utilized in this procurement to allow the State to award the contract to the Vendor providing the Best Value, and recognizing that Best Value may result in award other than the lowest price or highest technically qualified offer. By using this method, the overall ranking may be adjusted up or down when considered with, or traded-off against other non-price factors.
a) The evaluation committee may request clarifications, an interview with or presentation from any or all Vendors as allowed by 9 NCAC 06B.0307. However, the State may refuse to accept, in full or partially, the response to a clarification request given by any Vendor. Vendors are cautioned that the evaluators are not required to request clarifications; therefore, all offers should be complete and reflect the most favorable terms. Vendors should be prepared to send qualified personnel to Raleigh, North Carolina, to discuss technical and contractual aspects of the proposal.
b) Evaluation Process Explanation. State Agency employees will review all offers. All offers will be initially classified as being responsive or non-responsive. If an offer is found non-responsive, it will not be considered further. All responsive offers will be evaluated based on stated evaluation criteria. Any references in an answer
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c) To be eligible for consideration, a Vendor must meet the intent of all requirements. Compliance with the intent of all requirements will be determined by the State. Responses that do not meet the full intent of all requirements listed in this RFP may be deemed deficient. Further, a serious deficiency in the response to any one factor may be grounds for rejection regardless of overall score.
d) Vendors are advised that the State is not obligated to ask for, or accept after the closing date for receipt of proposal, data that is essential for a complete and thorough evaluation of the proposal.
3) Best and Final Offers (BAFO). If negotiations or subsequent offers are solicited, the Vendors shall provide BAFOs in response. Failure to deliver a BAFO when requested shall disqualify the non-responsive Vendor from further consideration. The State may establish a competitive range based upon evaluations of proposals, and request BAFOs from the Vendors within this range; e.g. “Finalist Vendors”. The State will evaluate BAFOs and and scores may be adjusted up or down. If the State requests selected Vendor Finalists to provide on-site oral presentations and product demonstrations during negotiations, scores may be adjusted up or down to reflect information from presentations and demonstrations.
4) Vendor may be disqualified from any evaluation or award if Vendor or any key personnel proposed, has previously failed to perform satisfactorily during the performance of any contract with the State, or violated rules or statutes applicable to public bidding in the State.
5) Evaluation Method. The weighted factors below will be used in the evaluation of the Vendor proposals.
Evaluation Criteria Weight
Completeness of Offer: Effectiveness of proposed recommendations, approaches, designs, products, services; deliverables, and management methodologies, processes, and practices (including Vendor/State relations and Vendor service delivery and management) that respond to the business objectives, specifications/requirements, needs, challenges, and opportunities presented in this RFP.
50%
Project plan, including the proposed approach and schedule of work to be performed for implementing the ITSM solution. This encompasses the areas of producing acceptable deliverables; organization, timing, and structure of work activities; system/application
development processes; resource application and representation; key personnel; and project management organization, approach, and oversight.
20%
Cost Effectiveness and Value: Cost proposals will be evaluated from a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective. The State anticipates examining cost proposals for evaluation criteria that may include, but are not limited to, the following:
i. Project costs and operational/maintenance costs for each of years one through the term of the the contract, 3 years (one year contract with 2 renewal years). For services performed pursuant to a Statement of Work and charged on an hourly rate basis, one fully loaded hourly rate that is applicable to all work and all levels and types of
personnel, assuming the work is in the Raleigh/Wake County area. The proposed rate should be fully loaded for travel and per diem in accordance with N.C.G.S. §138-6, with the vast majority of the work will be conducted in the Raleigh/Wake County area.
20%
Corporate Background and Experience: Vendor’s background and experience: including references; strength of financial information; and experience specifically relevant to responding to the State’s business and technical situations, requirements, needs, challenges, and
opportunities presented in this RFP. The State may deduct points for poor references. The State may elect to seek references other than the ones provided.
10%
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Evaluation Criteria Weight
TOTAL 100%
6) The Procurement Manager will make every effort to adhere to the following schedule:
Action Responsibility Date
Issue of RFP NCDOT November 20, 2015
Deadline To Submit Questions Vendors December 4, 2015
Response to Written Questions/RFP Amendments
NCDOT December 11, 2015
Submission of Offer Vendors December 30, 2015
Proposal Evaluation Evaluation Committee January 22, 2016
Selection of Finalists Evaluation Committee January 29, 2016
Oral Presentation and/or Product
Demonstrations by Finalists (if requested by DOT)
Vendors February 5, 2016
Best and Final Offers from Finalists Vendors March 11, 2016
Submission of Evaluation Team Recommendation
Evaluation Committee March 18, 2016
Contract Award Statewide IT Procurement Office April 15, 2016
Protest Deadline Vendors 15 days after award
7) Award Of Contract. Qualified proposals will be evaluated and acceptance may be made in accordance with Best Value procurement practices as defined by GS §143-135.9 and applicable administrative rules. The responsible Vendor whose proposal is most advantageous to the State, taking into consideration the evaluation factors herein, will be recommended for contract award. Unless otherwise specified by the State or the Vendor, the State reserves the right to accept any item or group of items on a multi-item proposal.
8) The State has implemented links to the Interactive Purchasing System (IPS) that allow the public to retrieve proposal award information electronically from our Internet web site: https://www.ips.state.nc.us/ips/. Click on the IPS BIDS icon, click on Search for BID, enter the Agency prefix-offer number (54-JC-11422631), and then search. This information may not be available for several weeks dependent upon the complexity of the acquisition and the length of time to complete the evaluation process.
9) Protest Procedures: Protests of awards exceeding $25,000 in value must be submitted to the issuing Agency at the address given on the first page of this document. Protests must be received in this office within fifteen (15) calendar days from the date of the contract award and provide specific reasons and any supporting documentation for the protest. All protests will be governed by Title 9, Office of Information Technology Services, Subchapter 06B Sections .1101 - .1121.
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Technical Specifications
1) Enterprise Architecture Standards:
The North Carolina Statewide Technical Architecture (NCSTA) is located at the following website:
(https://it.nc.gov/services/it-architecture/statewide-architecture-framework ). This provides a series of domain documents describing objectives, principles and best practices for the development, implementation, and integration of business systems. Agencies and Vendors should refer to these Architecture documents when implementing enterprise applications and/or infrastructure.
2) Enterprise Licensing:
In offering the best value to the State, Vendors are encouraged to leverage the State’s existing resources and license agreements. The agreements may be viewed at: https://it.nc.gov/services/license-and-agreements.
a. Identify components or products that are needed for your solution that may not be available with the State’s existing license agreement.
b. Identify and explain any components that are missing from the State’s existing license agreement.
c. If the Vendor can provide a more cost effective licensing agreement, please explain in detail the agreement and how it would benefit the State.
d. Explain the transportability and transferability of the proposed license agreements. Any licenses or warranties purchased on behalf of the State for this project must be transferable at the time the Vendor is paid under contract for said component.
3) Virtualization:
For on premise hosted solutions, the State desires the flexibility to host Vendor’s proposed solution in a virtualized environment, should it determine in the future that virtualized hosting for such solution would be more economical or efficient. The State currently utilizes server virtualization technologies including VMware, Solaris and zLinux.
Vendor should state whether its solution operates in a virtualized environment. Vendor also should identify and describe all differences, restrictions or limitations of its proposed solution with respect to operation, licensing, support, certification, warranties, and any other details that may impact its proposed solution, when hosted in a virtualized environment.
4) NCID: The proposed solution must externalize identity management and may be required to utilize the North Carolina Identity Service (NCID) for the identity management and authentication related functions performed by this application. NCID is the State's enterprise identity management (IDM) service. It is operated by the North Carolina Department of Information Technology. Additional information regarding this service can be found in the ITS Service Catalog at: http://www.its.state.nc.us/ServiceCatalog/Index.asp (see Identity Management - NC Identity Management under the main menu item Application Services) and the NCID Web site at:
https://www.ncid.its.state.nc.us/.
5) Equivalent Items:
Whenever a material, article or piece of equipment is identified in the specification(s) by reference to a
manufacturer’s or Vendor’s name, trade name, catalog number or similar identifier, it is intended to establish a standard, unless otherwise specifically stated as a brand specific requirement (no substitute items will be allowed). Any material, article or piece of equipment of other manufacturers or Vendors shall perform to the standard of the item named. Equivalent bids must be accompanied by sufficient descriptive literature and/or specifications to provide for detailed comparison. Samples of items, if required, shall be furnished at no expense to the State and if not destroyed in the evaluation process, may be returned to the Vendor at the Vendor’s expense.
6) All offers shall include specifications and technical literature sufficient to allow the State to determine that the equipment meets all requirements. This technical literature will be the primary source for evaluation. If a requirement is not addressed in the technical literature it must be supported by additional documentation and included with the offer. Offer responses without sufficient technical documentation may be rejected.
7) The State may, in its sole discretion, investigate any substitute or equivalent goods irrespective of any representation made by a Vendor or manufacturer.
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8) Specifications: Any deviation from specifications indicated herein must be clearly identified as an exception and listed on a separate page labeled “Exceptions to Specification”; otherwise, it will be considered that items offered are in strict compliance with these specifications, and Vendor will be held responsible. Any deviations shall be explained in detail. The Vendor shall not construe this paragraph as inviting deviation or implying that any deviation will be acceptable. Offers of alternative or equivalent goods may be rejected; and if offered, must be supported by independent documentary verification of equivalence to the specified goods.
9) Technical Specifications:
The Vendor’s response must specifically describe in detail and provide examples, when applicable, as to how the Vendor will comply with each specification specified in each sub-section below. Suitable alternative solutions may be considered, if the solution is deemed “equal to or greater than” the specification. When applicable, the
Vendor’s response must address pertinent details to be used in the evaluation, such as methodologies, hardware and software utilization, technical specifications, response times, downtimes, timeframes, deadlines, volume restraints/limits, staffing resources, size capacities, service-level expectations, etc. Acknowledgement that a specification can be met is not sufficient; “read and understood” and similar responses are not
sufficient. A description of the service or adherence to the specification must be provided.
Means, as used herein, is a specification that documents the requirements of a system or system component. It typically includes functional requirements, performance requirements, interface requirements, design
requirements, development standards, maintenance standards, or similar terms. Compliance with technical specifications is mandatory.
a) General
ID Description
1 The ITSM solution shall support approximately 350 named ITSM users or 120 concurrent ITSM users and 9,500 end users with a potential growth in internal and external users of 30%
over five years. The DOT IT help desk currently generates over 80,000 help desk tickest per year. The breakdown of the help desk tickets is as follows:
Password Reset 43%
Incident 26%
Service Request 16%
Move, Add, Chg 7%
Question 5%
Tech/User Assist 2%
Other 1%
2 Vendor shall provide on-going remote administrator support for up to ten (10) hours per month for the term of the contract. The scope of administrative support includes the following:
Guidance and advice on technical questions
Support enhancements or technical configuration services for release upgrades
Maintenance assistance on customer configurations
Perform day-to-day administration work
Observations regarding current configurations against best practices
A single point of contact to the vendor.
3 Vendor shall indicate whether the ITSM solution is:
1) an on premise NCDOT solution or
2) a hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, or
3) a solution that has the option of both on premise and SaaS.
4 Vendor shall describe the solution’s implementation of best practices out-of-box.
5 Vendor shall describe the solution’s use of modern technologies.
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ID Description
6 Vendor shall provide examples of the Vendor’s market leadership, and describe the Vendor’s focus, history and financial stability.
b) General Usability ID Description
7 The ITSM solution shall integrate with Microsoft Active Directory for user authentication and support SAML, WS Federation and support for claims.
8 The ITSM solution shall integrate with North Carolina’s Identify Service (NCID)
https://www.ncid.its.state.nc.us/TrainingAndDocumentation.asp to support a single sign-on implementation.
c) Service Desk & Incident Management ID Description
9 The ITSM solution shall support ITIL v3 best practices for Service Desk and Incident Management processes.
10 The ITSM solution shall address multiple separate and unique customer help desks or call centers e.g., NCDOT IT Help Desk, DMV IT Help Desk, and the DMV Business Help Desk.
11 The Vendor shall provide a detailed description of how the ITSM solution addresses multiple customer help desks or call centers including what capabilities, constraints and restrictions are involved.
12 The Vendor shall provide ITSM solution details regarding the functional design of the solution e.g., multiple virtual instances running concurrently for each help desk or partitions or one solution.
13 The Vendor shall describe how confidentially is maintained for the ITSM solution’s network traffic, (i.e. customer meta data, system logging, CMDBs, etc.). For example: through segmentation, encryption, etc.
14 The ITSM solution shall integrate with the Bomgar Remote Customer Support Tool.
15 The Vendor shall provide documentation demonstrating the Vendor’s previous experiences with the Bomgar Integration.
16 The ITSM solution shall easily initiate or transition into a major incident process from the incident process, including changing the categorization, escalations, emergency notifications and a critical incident management process.
d) Problem Management
ID Description
17 The Vendor shall provide a detailed description of the ITSM solution’s key features that support ITIL v3 for the Problem Management process.
e) Change Management ID Description
18 The ITSM solution shall comply with ITIL v3 best practices for Change Management.
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ID Description
19 The ITSM solution shall link incidents to completed changes with a completed change request.
20 The ITSM solution shall have the capability to identify or flag a failed change, using manual or automated methods and calculate a warranty period (SLA) for failed and successful change requests.
21 The Vendor shall provide description of how work flow would be used to handle a Standard pre-approved Change and a low risk change that do not have to be approved by the Change Approval Board but has to be approved by a local change manager.
22 The Vendor shall provide a detailed description of how a Change Analyst will update the Configuration Item(s) in the Change Management Data Base (CMDB) when executing a change.
23 The Vendor shall provide details as to how the CMDB will be kept current in a rapidly changing production environment which includes web services, business applications, software platforms and servers, databases, and network infrastructure.
f) Release & Deployment Management ID Description
24 The Vendor shall provide a description of how the ITSM solution will comply with ITIL v3 best practices for Release and Deployment Management.
25 The Vendor shall provide a description of how the ITSM solution supports multiple teams executing the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Waterfall methodology (ie. ITIL Release and Deployment process).
26 The Vendor shall provide a description of how the ITSM solution supports multiple teams executing Agile development methodologies for software development.
g) Request Fulfillment ID Description
27 The Vendor shall provide details of how the ITSM solution will comply with ITIL v3 best practices for Request Fulfillment.
h) Knowledge Management ID Description
28 The Vendor shall provide a description of how the ITSM solution will comply with ITIL v3 best practices for Knowledge Management.
29 The Vendor shall provide details of how the ITSM solution will support the initial population of the knowledge database from existing knowledge databases and information.
i) Configuration Management Database
ID Description
30 The Vendor shall describe the key features of the ITSM solution’s industry standard CMDB/CMS solution and how the ITSM solution is differentiated from other products with these features.
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ID Description
31 The Vendor shall describe how the ITSM solution supports the initial population of CMDB from existing databases and systems, including desktop PCs, mobile devices, datacenter servers and network devices.
32 The Vendor shall provide details as to how to maintain and keep the CMDB current and up-to-date. For example, the Vendor will differentiate automated and manual procedures for servers, network devices, PCs and related information from Microsoft SCCM data.
33 The Vendor shall provide details as to how applications and individual web services level data associated with a server Configuration Item will be maintained when making changes and
33 The Vendor shall provide details as to how applications and individual web services level data associated with a server Configuration Item will be maintained when making changes and