Marketing & Management Information, Inc., B-283399.4, May 18, 2000

B-283399.4 May 18, 2000 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST Protest that requirement should have been set aside for exclusive small business participation is denied where the contracting officer conducted market research. Are generally equipped with cash register equipment with front-end scanners that collect data on specific items sold. DeCA's commissary sales data is available to contractors by "subscription agreement" involving the purchase of a 3-year license (at an annual cost of $700. A synopsis of the requirement was posted on the Commerce Business Daily (CBD) electronic bulletin board (CBD-Net) on August 11. Two of those requests were from large businesses and six were from small businesses. MMI protested the unrestricted nature of the procurement and contended that the procurement should have been set aside for exclusive small business participation. View Decision Matter of: Marketing & Management Information, Inc. File: B-283399.4 Date: May 18, 2000 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Marketing & Management Information, Inc. (MMI) protests the decision by the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) to issue request for proposals (RFP) No. DECA01-99-R-0069, for subscription access to an information retrieval database, on an unrestricted basis. MMI primarily challenges the adequacy of market research conducted by DeCA in implementing corrective action recommended in our decision in Marketing & Management Information, Inc., B-283399.2, B-283399.3, Nov. 30, 1999, 99-2 CPD Para. 105. That decision sustained MMI's protest of the agency's initial market research efforts prior to issuance of the solicitation, which we found to be insufficient to support the agency's determination to conduct the procurement on an unrestricted basis. MMI again contends that the procurement should be set aside for exclusive small business participation. We deny the protest. As detailed in our earlier decision, DeCA's grocery commissaries, located worldwide, are generally equipped with cash register equipment with front-end scanners that collect data on specific items sold, including information as to item price and quantity, as well as total revenue from each sale. DeCA's commissary sales data is available to contractors by "subscription agreement" involving the purchase of a 3-year license (at an annual cost of $700,000) for the use of the raw product movement data. Contracting Officer's Determinations & Findings (D&F), Jan. 28, 2000, at 2. /1/ DeCA seeks access to a contractor's information retrieval database containing the agency's product movement sales data for commissaries within the continental United States, as well as comparable sales/movement data from commercial grocery stores within the same geographical areas, so that DeCA personnel can manipulate the data to generate their own category management and product movement reports. Statement of Work at 4. The RFP, issued July 14, 1999 on an unrestricted basis, contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract for a base period (of approximately 1 year) with an 18-month option period. A synopsis of the requirement was posted on the Commerce Business Daily (CBD) electronic bulletin board (CBD-Net) on August 11; that synopsis remained posted for public access for 30 days. D&F at 3. In response to that advertisement, DeCA received eight requests for a copy of the solicitation; two of those requests were from large businesses and six were from small businesses, including MMI. /2/ Id. MMI protested the unrestricted nature of the procurement and contended that the procurement should have been set aside for exclusive small business participation. We sustained that protest because of the limited nature of the contracting officer's initial market research, on which the agency relied to support the determination that there was no reasonable expectation of receiving two or more offers from responsible small businesses at fair market prices. That research effort involved only a review of the three current subscribers of the DeCA commissary data (two large businesses and MMI). Marketing & Management Information, Inc., supra, at 3-5. We also found that the contracting officer's determination not to set the procurement aside was based, in part, on his unsupported assumption that a small business could not perform profitably under the contract in light of both the substantial financial outlay required to obtain the necessary data and the existence of established businesses providing similar services. Id. at 5-6. We recommended that the contracting officer adequately investigate the potential small business capability and interest in the procurement and determine whether there is a reasonable expectation that offers will be obtained from two responsible small business concerns at fair market prices, and if so, to set aside the requirement for small businesses. Id.