Inactive

Upon the basis of the following justification, prepared in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.405-6(b)2. The use of sources limited to fewer than those required in FAR 8.405-1, FAR... Upon the basis of the following justification, prepared in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.405-6(b)2. The use of sources limited to fewer than those required in FAR 8.405-1, FAR 8.405-2, and FAR 8.405-3 pursuant to the authority of 41 U.S.C. 251 as implemented by FAR 8.405-6 (a)(1)(i) (B). This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program (41 U.S.C. 251, et seq. and 40 U.S.C. 501). 1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), Office of Communications, Washington, DC 2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved. GSA Schedule (FSS) order for services that require a statement of work. The contract type is a firm fixed price. The services are subscription-based. There are no variable costs. Winvale Group is the contractor for Meltwater News US, Inc., which provides social media monitoring and communications solutions. Meltwater is the global leader media monitoring. 3. A complete description of the supplies and/or services required to meet the agency’s needs. The services to be provided under the Meltwater subscription: Search online news media across over 300,000 sources globally ? Search social media across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and hundreds of millions of blogs ? Run an unlimited amount of retrospective, ad-hoc searches on any keywords you like ? Customize the source base to search only the outlets you need, add to the database on request ? Search using case sensitivity to remove irrelevant mentions ? English and International languages and characters including, but not limited to: Spanish, Farsi, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Hebrew, and more. ? Create custom notifications such as email reports on all searches to be sent daily, twice daily, or in real-time as articles are published ? Download Meltwater mobile app on iOS or Android to get real-time coverage directly to your phone ? Quick tools (tagging, translation, export, sentiment analysis, impact) ? Sharing capability via email, and the ability to post articles to Facebook and Twitter directly ? Create customized, fully interactive dashboards with the click of a button ? Select widgets from the library to create a qualitative & quantitative analysis of your saved searches ? Schedule dashboard reports to deliver analysis via email and to share with other collaborators Include your own content (branding, summaries, proprietary data) to create a centralized dashboard ? Analyze your impact and effectiveness across different mediums, and run yearover- year analysis on campaigns and keywords ? Extract insights on your components or any topic by benchmarking different searches and assessing their comparable performance/trends ? Incorporate Google Analytics Data to show the web impact of your PR efforts The period of performance is a one-year contract. The end date will be one year after the services begin. The value of the services is . 4. An identification of the LSJ rationale, and if applicable, a demonstration of the contractor’s unique qualifications to provide the required supply or service. • FAR 8.405-6 (a)(1)(i) (B) – Only one source is capable of responding due to the unique or specialized nature of the work. FECM’s Office of Communications selected Meltwater News because it is the best media monitoring service option available. This was determined through market research, interviews with other DOE users of Meltwater News, which include the Office of The Secretary’s Communications Office and the Office of Science, and three product demonstrations. Having a media monitoring platform that is compatible with the Office of The Secretary’s Communications Office is very important so that FECM can prepare and release information quickly and in sync with the administration. An example is in the area of media searches. Results are displayed in the Meltwater platform and contain a hyperlink to the original source article or post. Having FECM be able to go into the Meltwater News database and retrieve search results and hyperlinks results in time savings for FECM. Having a common configuration of media monitoring platforms with the Office of The Secretary’s Communications Office greatly aids efficiency and time savings. A common configuration with the Secretary’s office provides FECM the ability to upload and share contacts. It also allows FECM to email and archive press releases and media advisories easier and faster. The Meltwater News platform allows users to conduct proprietary influencer searches with relevance rankings. Having FECM’s media platform configured with the Secretary’s communications office enables both offices to share results and develop common media strategies. Meltwater monitors the world's largest database of traditional and social media sources. With over 300,000 editorial sources, thousands of print outlets, agreements with publications behind paywalls, broadcast coverage, podcasts, and over 300 million social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Forums, Message Boards, Comments, Review Sites, Reddit, and blogs, Meltwater provides the world’s largest corpus of news and social media content available. Using basic and advanced boolean-based keyword searches, Meltwater captures and archives coverage in a searchable online-based SaaS platform tool for easy reporting and analysis. Crawlers go out every 2-15 minutes to ensure near real-time coverage and reporting is imported into the platform after publication. FECM’s Office of Communications conducted market research into leading media monitoring service before determining that Meltwater News was the best choice. The market research included an online search into companies in this space, interviews with other DOE communications’ offices on the services they use, and product emonstrations. FECM’s Office of Communications received demonstrations from three companies: Meltwater, Cision and Critical Mention. An important factor in the election was the recommendation from DOE’s Office of the Secretary’s Communications office, which uses the service and is very satisfied. Having a common configuration and computability with the media monitoring platform used by the Office of the Secretary’s Communications office is crucial. 5. A determination by the ordering activity Contracting Officer that the order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d) and FAR 8.405-2(d). Per FAR 8.404(d) GSA has already determined the prices of supplies and fixed-price services, and rates for services offered at hourly rates, under schedule contracts to be fair and reasonable. 6. A description of the market research conducted among schedule holders, and the results of the research, or a statement why market research was not conducted. A statement must be made that the supplies and services are available from the FSS. FECM’s Office of Communications conducted market research into leading media monitoring service before determining that Meltwater News was the best choice. The market research included an online search into companies in this space, interviews with other DOE communications’ offices on the services they use, and product demonstrations. FECM’s Office of Communications received demonstrations from three companies: Meltwater, Cision and Critical Mention An important factor in the selection was the recommendation from DOE’s Office of the Secretary’s Communications office, which uses Meltwater News and is very satisfied with the service. 7. Any other facts supporting the limited source justification. 8. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency will take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for supplies and services is made. FECM’s Office of Communications will continue to utilize market research for future vendor selections. Market research will include an evaluation of companies in that market category, and it will obtain product demonstrations when possible. It will conduct a careful evaluation of the costs in relation to services provided so that FECM’s Office of Communications selects vendors that represent the best value. It will also utilize a performance-based work statement.