Focusing on the EIS Customer Experience

Note: This is a guest blog post by Amando E. Gavino Jr., Director, Office of Network Services, ITS/FAS/GSA. He is responsible for a portfolio of acquisition vehicles that provide government agencies with a diverse set of telecommunications solutions, including Networx, Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS), SATCOM, Enterprise Mobility, Connections II, and the Federal Relay Service.

On June 22, the General Services Administration (GSA) joined more than 200 representatives from across government and industry for a dynamic, customer-centric discussion about next-generation telecommunications under the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS), a comprehensive solution-based vehicle to address all aspects of federal agency information technology telecommunications, and infrastructure requirements.

EIS will provide mission-critical telecommunications infrastructure to the federal government for the next 15 years. It replaces the Networx, Washington Interagency Telecommunications System (WITS) 3, and GSA Regional telecommunications services contracts that expire in May 2020.

This event allowed us to hear from agency officials on a wide range of topics, including:

• What they need from EIS
• How important it is for each agency to find opportunities when transitioning telecom services under current contracts to EIS
• How they will meet the aggressive transition challenges

I’d like to take this opportunity to share more of the valuable feedback we received during the event. The customer-focused themes and advice give EIS stakeholders across government and industry more insight as we collectively move to EIS.

Top Customer Takeaways

1. Every federal agency is affected – more than 150 agencies and 60 Tribal organizations
2. Agencies need to have a sense of urgency, focusing continuously on preparing for their complete transition until finished
3. The EIS program holds opportunities for agencies, including modernizing, securing and transforming agency infrastructure. Think transformation as a key goal, rather than simply transition to the new acquisition vehicle. This means approaching EIS transition as an opportunity to transform agency telecom operations and add mission value.
4. Top priorities for agencies include:

• Complete transition before the current contracts expire in 2020
• Increase bandwidth demands
• Meet agency cybersecurity requirements (cyber is built into EIS)
• Focus on network modernization
• See both short and long-term cost savings
• Pay only for what the agency uses
• Improve performance at lower cost

5. Agencies are driving demand, not the EIS acquisition vehicle

• For example, due to local area networks increasingly connected to wide-area telecommunications networks over Ethernet interfaces (that time-division multiplexing interfaces were challenged to provide), demand drove Ethernet transport to be a mandatory service

6. To have a successful transition, each agency needs an accurate inventory and strong senior leadership commitment

• Inventory includes everything from traditional long distance to fully redundant, mission-critical, secure VPNs
• More than seven million inventory items across 90 regional and eight Networx contracts must move

7. Engage with GSA early, get the agency contracting officer on board early, and put agency governance in place

8. Agency Transition Plans are due to GSA in October 2016

9. Download a free copy of GSA’s just-released EIS Transition Handbook from the GSA Interact site

Industry Takeaways

1. Industry needs to prepare for the anticipated tsunami of EIS task order requests; Partners, teams, and processes have to be ready to go
2. Agencies will be looking for high-quality proposals for task and service orders
3. EIS wants to deliver tomorrow’s technology today and GSA encourages industry to work with government on ways to make that happen

Common Threads for Everyone

1. EIS is designed as a flexible and dynamic acquisition vehicle that will require continued collaboration with GSA, government, and industry going forward
2. All current federal government telecom inventory must be moved to EIS before the end of May 2020 – 47 months from now
3. EIS will address changing technology needs throughout the life of the acquisition vehicle
4. The EIS acquisition vehicle is expected to extend into 2031 with continuous technology refresh
5. Year 2020 is just around the corner. Even though we’re in the midst of the EIS acquisition, we are also planning further into the future. We are updating the NS2020 strategy, which will become the NS2025 strategy

GSA looks forward to continuing this EIS transition customer-centric dialog with our industry and government colleagues. We will continue the conversation on this blog and our GSA EIS Interact community. If you need assistance with agency transition, reach out to us at the IT Customer Service Center at 855-482-4348 or [email protected]. And again, please download a free copy of GSA’s just-released EIS Transition Handbook from the GSA Interact site.

Thanks to @ACTIAC and @ITAlliancePS for supporting our June 22nd transition conversation. The event was hosted by the ACT-IAC Networks and Telecommunications (N&T) Community of Interest (COI),Information Technology Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS), and other industry groups.

Please follow us on Twitter @GSA_ITS and LinkedIn to join our ongoing conversations about government IT.