DE01--ECO Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) Consolidated Effort - RFI (VA-27-00011677)

Was der Auftraggeber sucht

Request for Information Synopsis Enterprise Service Desk: Integrated Service Delivery Model with Independent Billing and Outcome Oversight 1.0 RFI Synopsis Narrative Background and Purpose The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information & Technology (OIT), Enterprise Command Operations (ECO) is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) to conduct market research supporting a planned future acquisition strategy for Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) support and its associated Contact Center Infrastructure (CCI). VA currently operates ESD Tier 0/1 support and CCI as two separate prime contracts under a Multi-Vendor Service Provider (MVSP) model, where the CCI vendor produces independent Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance reporting and conducts formal quality assurance oversight of the Tier 1 vendor's performance. VA is exploring whether and how Tier 1 agent services and CCI platform management could be brought together under an integrated service delivery model, while determining what functions, if any, should remain organizationally independent from the delivery contractor to preserve objective performance, quality, and billing oversight. VA has not determined the appropriate scope or structure of any such independent function and is seeking industry input on whether independence is necessary, which functions require it, and the most effective means of providing it. The primary purpose of this RFI is to hear from industry on how an integrated delivery model would work in practice, i.e., how it would be structured, transitioned, and operated and to use that input, together with the Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimates requested below, to inform the resulting Performance Work Statement (PWS) and VA's decisions on scope, sequencing, and commercial structure. VA recognizes that consolidation may not be the right answer in every respect, and industry input that identifies where a combined model would be impractical, along with the reasoning behind that view, is just as valuable to VA as input on how to make consolidation work. This RFI is not a solicitation and does not commit VA to a particular acquisition approach. One specific issue on which VA would welcome industry input, particularly in the context of a combined model, is how outcomes should be classified if VA adopts outcome-based, automation-linked, or gainshare pricing. Under those pricing structures, the classification of individual contacts (e.g., AI-resolved vs. human-handled, genuinely deflected vs. merely relabeled, successfully automated vs. escalated) becomes the basis for what VA pays. If agent services and CCI are combined, VA wants to understand how a vendor would ensure that the entity performing the work and the entity classifying/reporting the outcome of that work don't create a structural incentive to classify ambiguous or borderline contacts in whichever direction favors billing. VA recognizes that transparent data feeds alone may not fully resolve this on their own, since the vendor typically controls the metadata structure, the correlation logic between systems, and the judgment calls in ambiguous cases. This lines up with feedback VA has already received from industry: multiple respondents to prior VA market research independently flagged the "AI-attempted-then-escalated" correlation and the "resolving tier" determination as fields that are self-reported, consequential to billing, and not easily produced by either vendor alone under the current structure. Given that feedback, VA wants industry's perspective on whether some form of independent validation of billing-relevant outcomes would be useful under a combined model, and if so, how narrowly or broadly it should be scoped. For example, whether it should focus solely on billing/outcome validation, or whether it makes more sense operationally to fold in general quality assurance scoring and day-to-day SLA compliance reporting as well. VA has not settled this question and is not assuming…

Sprache dieser Bekanntmachung: English. Titel und Beschreibung erscheinen genau so, wie der Auftraggeber sie veröffentlicht hat.