Added: Apr 08, 2008 5:11 pm
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
PURSUANT TO FAR 15.201 (C)
RFI for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
Introduction
The Library of Congress seeks information from potential offerors as to the interest and/or capability to provide a commercial off-the-shelf system that will serve as a Customer Relationship Management system that meets the specifications outlined below in the technical and performance requirements section, and provides adequate technical assistance, training support and documentation to allow the system to be deployed, tested and put into production.
Background
The Federal Research Division (FRD) is a small (fewer than 50 employees) division of Library Services, within the Library of Congress (LOC). FRD currently houses its marketing database of contacts and activities on a UNIX-based bibliographic Database Management System (DBMS). This command-line interface features a series of unlimited character data fields tailored specifically to FRD needs. It is used primarily to store the agency and contact information for current and prospective clients. This database also maintains a historical record of client interactions in the Notes field. The longevity of the database and the detail of the records have caused many Notes fields to become unwieldy, with an enormous amount of stored information. These and other factors have prompted FRD to search for a suitable replacement Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
To ensure the long-term viability and extensibility of the replacement system, only commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products are being considered. Our research to date has targeted well-established companies largely identified through Hoover s with a broad user base and a history of CRM experience. To supplement the sales-focused nature of the corporate Web sites, research and news portals such as Gartner and CRM Daily were consulted for product reviews, technology trends, and an overall larger scope of business management software. These resources formed the foundation of our research and shaped our initial selection and review of potentially viable applications.
We were satisfied that our initial research was thorough and far-reaching. However, delays in obtaining sufficient funding for all aspects of the project have resulted in a two- year time lapse since the original research was performed. FRD requires a Request for Information (RFI) to update its research to determine whether there are other potential vendors who can meet the requirements specified below.
Technical Requirements
Performance Requirements
FRD requires the contractor to meet the following performance requirements:
Provide a fully operational, fully licensed version of the software that can support up to 50 government employees/contractors and that contains all the functionality represented on the contractor s demonstration version.
Provide quarterly technical support and maintenance as well as periodic software updates.
Provide consulting support as necessary to assist in the implementation of the software in both the testing and production environments and to assist in the transfer of data to the application from the existing database.
Provide training for FRD staff.
Provide a complete set of user, administrator, maintenance, and technical documentation for the system.
In addition, the contractor must meet the following general requirements and specific functional requirements.
General requirements:
The software will be hosted by the government in the LOC Automation Hosting Environment.
The maximum funding available for this project is $19,000.00.
The total number of users for the system will be less than 50.
The system will be used as a marketing management system with additional capabilities to perform project management and personnel skills tracking tasks.
The system must be easily customizable without requiring extensive additional development.
Functional Requirements:
Must have the following capabilities and features:
Storage of detailed contact information for multiple individuals.
Ability to associate individuals with offices, agencies, departments and other groups.
Maintain cumulative records of activities and points of contact with clients.
Provide historical summary for proposed projects, associated costs, and funding status.
Searchable data fields.
Mail merge capabilities for letters, envelopes, and other correspondence.
Reporting capabilities for filtering records and providing statistical snapshot of marketing activities.
Reminder fields for upcoming and future scheduled events and activities.
Intuitive, graphical not UNIX-based interface.
Commercial rather than proprietary solution offering periodic product upgrades and maintenance.
User customization of data fields tailored to FRD needs and functions.
Mail merges automatically logged in activity record.
Full-text search capabilities.
Email integration with GroupWise.
Calendar integration with GroupWise (highly desirable).
Word processing integration with MS Word or Corel Word Perfect.
Drop-down menus to standardize data entry.
Separation of Notes field into discrete entries for various activities, rather than concatenation in a single data field.
Objectives
The principal objectives of this RFI are to provide LOC with:
1) Establishment and implementation of a Customer Relationship Management System;
2) Technical assistance in establishing the Testing and Production environments;
3) Technical assistance in transferring data from the existing system to the vendor provided system;
4) Complete documentary support for the system including operators manual, support manuals and training materials;
5) Operator level and admin level training to selected FRD staff (approximately 4).
Applicants are asked to provide the following information:
a. A cursory plan on how they would carry out Objectives One (1) through Five (5);
b. A brief description of their technical capacity to carry out Objectives One (1) through Five (5)
c. A brief description of the consultative process they would use to develop and achieve consensus on recommendations;
d. An estimate of the amount of time needed to carry out these activities.
Disclaimer
This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Responses to this RFI will not be returned. Respondents will not be notified of the result of the review.
Submissions
Responses for the information requested should be approximately 7 pages or more in length. Responses shall be submitted electronically by no later than 5PM EST on April 28, 2008, to LaTalya Palmer-Lewis, Contracting Specialist at lpal@loc.gov.
Point of Contact
LaTalya Palmer-Lewis
Contract Specialist
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave. (LA-325)
Washington, DC 20540
Telephone: 202-707-3117
Fax: 202-707-8611
Email: lpal@loc.gov
