Allied Consultants, Inc. (ACI) is approved to contract with the State of Texas through the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) to provide Deliverables-Based Information Technology Services (DBITS) to Texas State and Local governments under contract number DIR-CPO-4921.

Allied Consultants offers deliverables-based information technology services (DBITS) through this contract. This contract is for services only. No hardware or software products may be sold through a DBITS contract. Contracts may be used by state and local government, public education, other public entities in Texas, as well as public entities outside the state. Resellers are not available for this DBITS contract. State Agencies are required through Gov’t Code 2157.068 to meet bid threshold requirements for IT commodity purchases for hardware, software, and technology services. Thresholds apply to all purchases through the Cooperative Contracts Program.  

Services Offered:

• ·Application Development, Maintenance, and Support and Technology Upgrade, Migration, and Transformation including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); 

• Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management, Analytics, and Automation, including Data Warehousing; 

• Information Technology Assessments, Planning, Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V), Market Research, Procurement Advisory, and Contract Implementation Services; and 

• Project and Program Management. 

Benefits of utilizing the DBITS contract to Texas State Local Government agencies:

• Save Time: DIR goes through a competitive procurement process using the Request for Offer (RFO) method of procurement to procure Automated Information System (AIS) and Information Technology (IT) products and services. This cuts the procurement time for you dramatically!

• Save Money: DBIT’s contract leverages the State of Texas’ purchasing power to get your organization big savings, meaning you receive discounted pricing with pre-negotiated terms and conditions in compliance with state procurement rules.

• Easier Process: Easily search for products and services and filter the results. You’ll quickly find the vendor that’s right for you.

• Quality Assurance: Every DIR approved vendor must comply with the contract in full, meaning they’re knowledgeable and will meet (and often exceed) your expectations.

Please see below for more information regarding these services and the easy to use flexible procurement and contracting vehicle:

Services Offered - Descriptions

Instructions for Obtaining a Quote or Placing An Order

Contact Information

If you are interested in more information on our services through DIR Cooperative Contracts, DIR Contract No. DIR-CPO-4921, please contact us by one of the following methods, and feel free to reference the DIR DBITS Contracts Overview.

Respondent information

Name: Shelby Jacoby

Email: sjacoby@alliedconsultants.com

Direct Line: 512-236-8535 x200

Office: 
512-236-8535

FAX: 
(512) 236-8565

Mail:
Danny Krause
Allied Consultants, Inc.
1304 West Avenue
Austin, TX 78701

Services Offered - Descriptions

Application Development, Maintenance, and Support, Technology Upgrade, Migration, and Transformation; and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

A.     Application Development is the development of new applications which may be mainframe, server, network-based, web-based or a combination and may require interfaces to existing applications. Application Maintenance and Support includes troubleshooting, modifying, maintaining, improving security, and enhancing legacy systems and applications which may be running in a production environment.

B.     Technology upgrade, migration, and transformation may be accomplished by converting/migrating legacy applications to new technology, either with or without new business functionality. It may also include introducing new technology into the enterprise and managing any changes as a result of the introduction.

C.      Transformation may include assessments of the current application portfolio, evaluation of the technology assets before beginning technology transformation and Business Case development for justification of an initiative. Part of the transformation journey may include planning, analysis, requirements development, proof of concept, deployment, implementation, integration, remediation, data migration, documentation, application programming and support services, and training support.

D.     Return on investment (ROI), benchmarks, and milestones may also be appropriate to include in a transformation initiative.

E.      Agile methodology MAY be considered if requesting agency defines the sprint schedule, methodology, and governance which defines the process of developing, communicating, implementing, monitoring, and approving the project phases. Additional areas within scope include the following:

i)            Website content accessibility compliance;

ii)           Cloud transformation;

iii)         Digital transformation;

iv)         IT organizational transformation; and

v)           User acceptance testing.

F.      ERP is an amalgamation of an organization’s information systems designed to automate and integrate a variety of functions, commonly referred to as “back office”, including financials, human resources and asset management. These systems are usually modularized and generally highly configurable. Business Process Reengineering (BPR), system or application changes, implementation, conversion services, and training are often included in an ERP initiative.

Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management, Analytics, and Automation, including Data Warehousing;

A.     BI enables an organization to perform in-depth analysis and includes, where required, data mining of detailed business data providing real and significant information to business users. BI may include an integrated group of operational and decision support applications and databases. BI makes use of tools designed to easily access data warehouse data. A data warehouse collects, organizes and makes data available for the purpose of analysis and gives organizations the ability to access and analyze information about its business. The function of the data warehouse is to consolidate and reconcile information from across disparate business units and IT systems and provide a context for reporting and analysis.

B.     Road mapping for a data warehouse initiative may include assessment of technology and infrastructure, as-is documentation, business requirements gathering, use case development, and reporting requirements analysis.

C.      This category includes solutioning data warehouse architectural design, data warehouse processes and sourcing, extraction, transformation, analytics, and loading of data sources; planning, assessment, product installation and tuning; prototype development, deployment, data cleansing, data mart development and support; data migration, integration with data mining; integration with business intelligence tools, artificial intelligence, and/or systems; data scrubbing; data transformation; training and knowledge transfer.

D.     Data governance planning and implementation, and Business Analytics and Reporting (BAR) is also included in this category.

IT Assessments, Planning, Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V), and IT Procurement Assistance; this category includes, but is not limited to:

A.     IT Assessments and Planning may include IT effectiveness, maturity,    governance, and architecture. Strategic planning activities may include mission statement development, visioning and goals, objectives, and strategy development. Assessment of staff knowledge, skills and abilities, bandwidth, time and motion studies, and succession planning are included in this category. Strategic planning development and tactical planning may require the provisioning of actionable plans and roadmaps. Organization change management, enterprise architecture, cloud assessments, and network performance assessments are within scope as well.

B.     Also included in this category are the independent verification and validation procedures that are used together for in-depth analysis of a product, service, or system for compliance with requirements as well as the independent oversight of software (or systems) development life cycle (SDLC) processes and specifications.

C.      Market Research, Procurement Advisory, and Contract Implementation Services activities may include requirements gathering, facilitation activities, scoring criteria development, evaluation criteria development, negotiation guidance and assistance, and contract transition assistance.

i)            Cost optimization including software license cost analysis;

ii)          Financial planning and pricing structures;

iii)        Market reviews/market research;

iv)         Market engagement;

v)          Transition/implementation assistance; and

vi)         IT contract management assistance.

NOTE: When using IT Procurement Assistance under Texas Government Code, § 2155.004, a state agency may not accept a bid or award a contract that includes proposed financial participation by a person who received compensation from the agency to participate in preparing the specifications or request for proposals on which the bid or contract is based. The selected Contract Holder and the employees of that Contract Holder who perform IT Procurement Assistance Services will be ineligible to respond to any resulting solicitation(s).

Project and Program Management

A.     Project and Program management services include any or all of the project management processes identified by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as published in the most recent edition of the PMBOK® Guide, including practice guides such as Agile and Managing Change in Organizations.

B.     Examples of included services include utilizing the Customer’s tools and processes, using commercially available off-the-shelf tools, using Contract Holder’s own proprietary tools and processes to manage a project, and using the Texas Project Delivery Framework. Information about the framework tool can be found at the following url: https://prod.dir.texas.gov/project-delivery-framework

C.      This category includes, but is not limited to:

i)            Business case development;

ii)          Statewide impact analysis;

iii)        Cost to benefit analysis;

iv)         Risk assessment;

v)          Stakeholder management;

vi)         Organizational change management;

vii)       Strategic planning;

viii)     Program assessment; and

ix)         Agile development, training, coaching.

Instructions for Obtaining a Quote or Placing An Order

DIR Customers must complete an SOW which will describe the deliverables, the acceptance criteria for the deliverables, and any required or proposed service levels. Sample SOW formats and service levels instructions can be found at https://dir.texas.gov/it-solutions-and-services/buying-through-dir/statement-work-sow. The total contract value must align with Texas Government Code and Rules.  DIR Customers will identify the specific details of their SOWs. State agency Customers must submit SOWs to DIR for review and approval prior to soliciting DIR Contract Holders.  DIR DBITS Contract Holders will follow DIR Customer response instructions for each SOW to which they respond. The DIR Customer will make the best value determination and issue a purchase holder directly to the selected Contract Holder.

Using the DIR-provided SOW format or a customer-created template, Customers will solicit Contract Holders to provide deliverables-based IT services.  Customer SOWs may include additional terms and conditions associated with the specific project.   Successful Respondent shall review Customer SOWs, and if interested and able to provide the requested services, shall submit compliant responses.  The Successful Respondent shall be held accountable for all additional Customer terms and conditions to which Successful Respondent agrees as part of the Customer solicitation process.

Customer negotiates pricing of deliverable(s) directly with vendor and work to improve the SOW to align with project goals. Customer is required to reference DIR contract number -DIR-CPO-4921 when placing purchase orders. Please note this is a service contract and there is no Warranty and Return Policy.

Contact Information

Allied Consultants DIR DBITS Contract Number is: DIR-CPO-4921

Please contact Allied Consultants, Inc. at 512-236-8565 to find out more and discuss your specific requirements.

For more information regarding these services and this easy to use and flexible procurement and contracting vehicle, see the DIR Cooperative website.

Subcontractors:

Headspring LLC

Cyrus Technology LLC

Tunabear Inc.

Texas GovLink Inc.

Accenture LLP

Saxon Global Inc.

SMD Technosol