Groundswell claims the Army wanted Accenture to win the $1B EBS-C competition

Groundswell has leveled a series of allegations against Accenture and the Army in the lawsuit it filed after Accenture won a contract to consolidate several Army business systems.

The company filed its protest at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims after the Army picked Accenture for the Enterprise Business Systems – Convergence contract, which is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion over its eight-year run. EBS-C will consolidate several Army business systems onto a single SAP-powered platform.

In its complaint, Groundswell says that the Army changed the parameters of the evaluation in the middle of the competition to benefit Accenture, the long-time incumbent on several of the business.

Groundswell filed the protest Oct. 30 under the name of Telesto, one of its subsidiaries. The complaint was originally sealed, but the court released it this week.

Because of various actions described in the complaint, Groundswell alleges that the Army wanted Accenture to win the contract all along.

The Army designed the competition to have eight steps, with steps seven and eight comprising the final award to one winner.

Each step was like a small competition that bidders had to pass to move to the next step.

Step four was a demo of a solution. Step five included various sprints that the companies had to complete.

Groundswell alleges that the Army ignored Accenture’s poor performance in step four and then lowered the standards for sprints four and five in step five because Accenture wasn’t able to perform them.

Instead of building a solution in the sprints, the Army told Accenture and Groundswell to describe how they would build the solution.

“Sprints 4 and 5 of Step 5 were originally going to be the most demanding tests with stringent criteria to be satisfied, which would allow Telesto to showcase its superior technology and capabilities,” Groundswell writes in the complaint. “This change markedly reduced the rigor of the demonstration.”

Then the Army changed how it would evaluate step seven, when the final winner would be picked.

Up through step five, the Army conducted evaluations at the end of each step. With step five, the Army said it would withhold evaluation and provide it only after it made its final decision on step seven.

Groundswell’s complaint calls this move “irrational.”

“If what the Army wanted was the best and most accurate proposals from the parties at Step 6, it would have told the parties what it thought of their proposals after Step 5, just as it had done at every step in the process to that point,” the company says.

Groundswell points to this change as part of its allegation that the Army wanted Accenture all along.

“This approach gave the Army flexibility to improperly alter its evaluation of [Groundswell] after the fact to fit and support its anticipated decision to make the Step 7 award to Accenture,” the company alleges.

The Army also refused to provide the final evaluation criteria for step seven until late in the process, when the Army said it would evaluate that step on a best-value basis, using step five evaluation reports, which Groundswell says were never provided, and step six results, where companies provided a performance-based work statement and price, plus terms and conditions.

Groundswell says it was a mistake to not include requirements for architecture, system design features to limit customization, approaches to improve the user experience, and cost and operational efficiency of the overall design, among other requirements.

“These omitted factors are core to the ability of any vendor to deliver on the scope of the project and should have been combined with the results of Step 5 to provide a comprehensive, full prototype technical evaluation,” the company wrote.

Groundswell also is accusing Accenture and SAP, the software EBS-C will be built on, of engaging in anticompetitive behavior. The company points to an ongoing Justice Department investigation of Accenture, SAP and Carahsoft into price-fixing involving other, unrelated contracts.

Carahsoft had its offices raided by the Justice Department on Sept. 24. The FBI confirmed the raid but would not comment further. A Carahsoft spokesperson said that the raid involved a company Carahsoft previously did business with but would not name the company.

Carahsoft and SAP are not part of either the Accenture or Groundswell teams. According to solicitation documents, the Army would provide the SAP software to the winning bidder.

But Groundswell says that the Army delayed announcing the Accenture award from August to Oct. 4, so the award wasn’t made at the same time news of the investigation became public.

Accenture, Carahsoft and SAP declined to comment for this story. The Army referred questions to the Justice Department, who also declined to comment.

Groundswell also alleges that Accenture improperly contacted company CEO George Batsakis to convince him that Groundswell should drop out during step six and become an Accenture subcontractor.

The Accenture person told him that the Army wanted to pick Accenture but liked Groundswell’s ammunition management solution.

“This overture signaled both that Accenture was improperly privy to information about the selection process and that the Army had already pre-determined that it wanted to give the award to Accenture, notwithstanding its recognition of the technological superiority of Telesto’s solution,” the company writes in the complaint.

Groundswell also complains that the debriefing it received from the Army came nearly a month after the award, and the Army shared very few details on pricing and evaluation results. The debriefing was worthless, according to Groundswell.

In its complaint, Groundswell wants the Army to rescind the award to Accenture and reevaluate proposals for step seven. It also wants its bid and proposal costs reimbursed as well as its legal fees.

It’s important to note that the filing of the complaint is just the first step in the protest and represents only Groundswell’s version of the competition.

The Army will file the administrative record of the procurement by Nov. 21 and has until Jan. 2 to file a motion to dismiss based on the administrative record. Groundswell has until Jan. 16 to respond. There also are likely to be hearings before Judge Richard A. Hertling at some point before he rules on the protest.