Page 8 - FCW, May 2021

Recipe for Success
How CDW·G uses SEWP to support federal modernization
Federal agencies face a modernization challenge and must overcome a range of
roadblocks on the way to IT modernization. Often, the right contracting vehicle can make the difference.
“A lot of them have technologies that are archaic at best, they don’t meet the requirements of some
of the modern technologies, and they aren’t able to upgrade as quickly as they would like to,” said CDW·G CTO for Defense and Intel, Peter Dunn.
The NASA Solution for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) contracting vehicle can help: In 2020 feds turned to SEWP for some $9 billion in key purchases. With support from
a capable partner like CDW·G, agencies can leverage SEWP to access a wide range of technology products and services faster and more cost-effectively.
The roadblocks
The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the need for modernization. While federal agencies generally were able to support a rapid shift to
remote work, many also struggled to adapt.
“They had legacy equipment or legacy data center environments,” Dunn said. “They had classified environments where they needed to access these secured networks from home, and that proved challenging. And they had older solutions that weren’t in any way mobile.”
Even before COVID became a complicating factor, federal entities were struggling to move forward on their modernization efforts.
“They need to be placing things inside containers or leveraging Kubernetes, to start moving towards rapid scalability in a hybrid cloud or even a multi-cloud environment. That isn’t happening as fast as it could,” Dunn said.
Some have struggled to align their legacy architectures with emerging cloud capabilities. Others have been stymied in their efforts to refresh key infrastructure elements.
The SEWP contract vehicle offers the means to overcome these and other hurdles on the way to federal IT modernization.
The gold standard
Widely regarded as the gold standard in customer service among federal contracting vehicles, SEWP provides agencies with an easy-to-use, flexible, and affordable means to acquire new technologies.
It offers competitive pricing at low fees — as of October 1, 2020, the SEWP surcharge for all orders is 0.34 percent — along with an online repository of information that helps to ensure a high degree of usability.
“The NASA Team has done a very good job of putting together a portal that makes it simple for customers,” said Sheryl McCurnin, senior manager of federal programs at CDW·G. Buyers can find helpful tools on the portal, including training videos as well as a streamlined capability to request a quote.
“When a customer navigates the SEWP portal, they will discover all kinds of documentation needed to ensure compliance, ensure that they achieve competition, and
that everything was appropriately priced,” she said. “They’ve
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