Three vendors win SSA's $7.8 billion IT services contract

The Social Security Administration has chosen CGI Federal, Leidos and Northrop Grumman for a potential 10-year, $7.8 billion contract to perform IT services.

SSA disclosed the Information Technology Support Services contract awards in a trio of Aug. 21 FedBizOpps notices. The award for Leidos went to the legacy Lockheed Martin IS&GS business headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md.

The contract includes two base years with eight one-year options. CGI is eligible for up to $2.4 billion in task orders, Lockheed can bid for up to $2.3 billion in work and Northrop has access to up to $3.1 billion.

Incumbents Lockheed and Northrop will continue the work, while other incumbents Accenture and CSRA were not chosen for the new iteration. The predecessor contract expires on Sept. 28, according to Deltek.

The aging baby boomer generation is going to put an additional strain on SSA compute resources, according to the initial statement of work from September 2015. The agency pointed to the challenge of pivoting to new technology while maintaining required service levels.

"The challenge is how to select, apply, and control evolving hardware and software components at a reasonable price while meeting the changing information systems requirements of the agency and the citizens it serves," the documents states. According to contracting documents, the original plan was for an award to be made in January, with the contract extending through September 2026.

Awardees will vie for task orders to help SSA deploy new hardware and software in support of employees' work in customer service. Contractors will focus their efforts on systems development lifecycles as the agency seeks to increase use of automation in IT systems as they expand. The work also includes database and data management, web interfaces and systems security support.

Lockheed has been the biggest winner on the predecessor contract with $600 million in obligations since its 2010 award; Northrop is next with $535 million. CSRA has received $265 million and Accenture has been obligated $143 million, Deltek reports.

Adam Mazmanian contributed to this story, a version of which originally appeared in Washington Technology.