The General Services Administration put a finer point on the Centers of Excellence initiative to drive IT modernization across the government. GSA released five requests for quote (RFQ) under the Professional Services Schedule for phase one of the program.

“Together as one team in support of a broader transformation strategy, each CoE will provide agencies with consulting and engineering services to radically improve the way in which agencies design services and interact with the customers they serve, with a constant focus on meaningfully improving outcomes,” GSA wrote in the RFQ, which Federal News Radio obtained from an industry source. “This transformation is of course supported by changes in the underlying technology to deliver increased operational efficiency.”

Under the solicitations, GSA wants support services for all five areas of the CoE:

• Cloud adoption
• IT infrastructure optimization
• Customer experience
• Service delivery analytics
• Contact center

“Objectives in all areas will include pioneering new techniques and research of standards from the government and industry to implement best practices, refine knowledge, and provide guidance through assisting or providing formal and informal knowledge transfer to the agency,” the RFQ states.

GSA expects to award one contractor per area under a one-year contract with two one-year options. Bids to each of the RFQs are due Jan. 8 and questions to GSA are due Dec. 29.

The White House’s Office of American Innovation formally introduced the CoEs Dec. 14 at an industry day. The centers are part of a broader plan that also includes the recently signed into law Modernizing Government Technology Act and the administration’s IT Modernization Strategy.

Under each of the support areas, GSA details possible activities. For instance, under cloud, GSA says the vendor may provide application/system analysis, cloud migration planning and security assessments and innovations.

Additionally, GSA said there are other potential support services that the awarded vendor may be asked to provide, including engagement support, such as clarifying the requirements, deliverables and milestones for agency engagements process improvement tasks and providing senior level technical development and architectural expertise for agency engagements, and process improvement support, which includes creating, revising and/or delivering project management presentations and enhancing the software development life cycle.

GSA’s Technology Transformation Service in the Federal Acquisition Service is running the CoE effort and the first customer test case will be the Agriculture Department. TTS expects to make awards under these RFQs by the end of January.

GSA said at the industry day there will be a phase 2 that will focus on implementation of these technologies and services over the next two-to-three years.

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