Pivotal Point LLC

B-423072.2 Nov 25, 2025 Jump To FULL REPORT VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Pivotal Point, LLC, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) of Falls Church, Virginia, protests the award of a contract to 3Links Technologies, Inc., an SDVOSB of Silver Spring, Maryland, under request for proposals (RFP) No. 36C10F24R0002, issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for telecommunications and data drops work. Pivotal contends that the agency unreasonably evaluated its proposal under two of the RFP's non-price factors. We deny the protest. View Decision DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. The entire decision has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Pivotal Point LLC File: B-423072.2 Date: November 25, 2025 Christopher C. Bouquet, Esq., The Law Office of Christopher C. Bouquet, PLLC, for the protester. Elizabeth Hall, Esq., Department of Veterans Affairs, for the agency. Hannah G. Barnes, Esq., and April Y. Shields, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protest challenging the agency’s evaluation of the protester’s proposal, including allegations that the agency disparately evaluated the protester’s and awardee’s proposals, is denied where the record shows that the agency’s evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation and where the differences in ratings were based on differences in the proposals. 2. Protest that the agency applied unstated evaluation criteria in its evaluation of the protester’s proposal is denied where the challenged evaluation findings were logically encompassed by the stated criteria. DECISION Pivotal Point, LLC, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) of Falls Church, Virginia, protests the award of a contract to 3Links Technologies, Inc., an SDVOSB of Silver Spring, Maryland, under request for proposals (RFP) No. 36C10F24R0002, issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for telecommunications and data drops work. Pivotal contends that the agency unreasonably evaluated its proposal under two of the RFP’s non-price factors. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP, issued on June 3, 2024, as an SDVOSB set-aside, contemplated the award of a single firm-fixed-price contract with a base year and four option years for a broad range of telecommunications and data drops work at properties located within Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Agency Report (AR), Tab 4, RFP at 1. Award was to be made on a best-value tradeoff basis, considering the following evaluation factors: (1) company experience, (2) project management, (3) past performance, and (4) price. Id. at 43. The RFP advised that all non-price evaluation factors, when combined, were significantly more important than price. Id. The RFP also directed offerors to submit their proposals in two sections, technical and price, that would be “evaluated independently.” Id. at 46. The price proposal was to include the completed price schedule, while the technical proposal would contain all other information regarding the offerors’ “ability to perform [the] requirements outlined in the solicitation.” Id. at 46-48. As relevant here, the company experience factor directed offerors to submit up to three contracts or task orders demonstrating “experience performing telecommunication services in a Government environment.” Id. at 43. The RFP required offerors to provide “detailed information” about their experience and advised that offerors’ experience “will be assessed on the basis of its breadth and depth of the contracts/task orders and will be evaluated for recency and relevancy.” Id. The solicitation defined relevancy as “similar in scope and size of this solicitation” and recency as “contracts/task orders 100 [percent] complete within the past 5 years as of the solicitation date or current contracts/task orders that are at least 75 [percent] complete as of the solicitation date.” Id. Under the project management factor, the solicitation directed offerors to “include detailed information regarding how the offeror plans to coordinate and manage the potential for several orders/projects occurring at the same time.” Id. Offerors were to describe their approach to performing the project work; and the RFP required offerors to include resumes for the project managers, technicians, and other personnel anticipated to support the contract in the project management plan. Id. at 44. Under the past performance factor, offerors would provide reference information and questionnaires completed by the point of contact for the contracts or task orders that the offeror submitted under the company experience factor. Id. The solicitation advised that the basis of evaluation would be the degree to which past performance reflected a “trend of satisfactory or better performance.” Id.