The 8 (a) STARS II Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) was awarded to Unissant Inc., a leading edge IT consulting solutions provider to government and commercial clients. It is a SBA approved 8(a), Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) and a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) with its headquarters in Reston, Va.
“We have been anticipating this award for quite a while. We have heard and read many success stories about companies that have prospered by using this GWAC effectively,” said Manish Malhotra, President and CEO of Unissant. Unissant is ready to capitalize on this contracting vehicle and to leverage the streamlined procurement path to better serve our federal customers. We applaud government leaders for the foresight to bring contract vehicles like the 8(a) STARS II to assure small business continues to lead innovation in meeting government technology challenges”.
When purchasing IT technology services or IT-services based solutions for the federal government, the 8(a) STARS II GWAC is designed to advocate small business utilization. The contract is reserved specifically to qualified 8(a) small businesses and has a five year base with one five-year option. Moreover, its $10 billion program ceiling facilitates orders up to $4 million each.
Unissant was chosen based on its cost and non-cost factors, which include the Contract Administration Plan (CAP), Past Performance, Price, Responsibility and its Marketing Action Plan (MAP). The company was selected based on the Functional Area FA1 – Custom Computer Programming Services, FA2 – Computer Systems Design Services and FA3 – Computer Facilities Management Services.
The 8(a) GWAC offers many benefits which include a socioeconomic credit transferrable to the agency, pre-competed easy to use contracts, access to proven 8(a) small business technology providers, shortened procurement lead time and a low user access fee (0.75 percent) built into contractor’s ceiling prices.