Quantitative

Trade Agreement: Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA)
Tendering Procedures: The bidder must supply Canadian goods and/or services
Competitive Procurement Strategy: Best Overall  Proposal
Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No
Nature of Requirements: 

Quantitative

24062-180203/A
Amaral, Paola
Telephone No. - (613) 998-8588


The information contained in this notice is a summary of the requirement. Bidders must refer to the solicitation documents for a full description of the requirement and instructions.


NATURE OF REQUIREMENT 

Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), on behalf of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), has a requirement for the services of a public opinion research firm to conduct the Public Service Employee Survey (PSES). The PSES will provide information to support the continuous improvement of people management practices in the federal public service.


PERIOD OF THE CONTRACT

The period of the contract will be from the effective date to March 31, 2019, with the possibility of two (2) additional one (1) year option periods. 


ENQUIRIES

All enquiries must be directed to the Contracting Authority at the contact details identified within this tender notice no later than the deadline indicated in the RFP. 


SOURCING

The requirement is limited to Canadian goods and/or services.

The Federal Contractors Program (FCP) for employment equity applies to this procurement; refer to Part 5 - Certifications and Additional Information, Part 7 - Resulting Contract Clauses and the annex titled Federal Contractors Program for Employment Equity - Certification.

This bid solicitation allows bidders to use the epost Connect service provided by Canada Post Corporation for bid submission. Bidders must refer to Part 2 of the bid solicitation entitled Instructions to bidders for further information.

The Phased Bid Compliance Process applies to this requirement.


EVALUATION CRITERIA 

MANDATORY EVALUATION CRITERIA

M.1a SURVEY MANAGER

The Bidder must identify one (1) Survey Manager responsible for client liaison and immediate supervision of all aspects of the projects.  The Survey Manager will be evaluated in the Point Rated Technical Evaluation R3 - Resource Qualifications - Survey Manager.

The survey manager must have, at a minimum, a relevant* college diploma or university degree and must possess at minimum, five (5) years of relevant experience managing quantitative public opinion research projects. 

*Relevant = specialization/major in disciplines such as: social sciences, economics, marketing research, and statistics

M.1b  SENIOR RESEARCHER

The Bidder must identify at least one (1) Senior Researcher responsible for the conduct of all aspects of the projects.  The Senior Researcher will be evaluated in the Point Rated Technical Evaluation R4 - Resource Qualifications - Senior Researcher.

The Senior Researcher must have, at a minimum, a relevant* college diploma or university degree and must possess at minimum, five (5) years of relevant experience conducting quantitative public opinion research projects. 

*Relevant = specialization/major in disciplines such as: social sciences, economics, marketing research, and statistics


M.2  CORPORATE EXPERIENCE - SAMPLE PROJECTS 

To demonstrate the Bidder’s experience, the Bidder must submit no more than three (3) quantitative online public opinion research (POR) sample projects. Sample projects will be evaluated in the Point Rated Technical Evaluation R5 - Corporate Experience - Sample Projects. Please use Appendix 1 to Annex C - Project Submission Form to submit project samples. Only the first three (3) projects submitted in response to M.2 will be evaluated.

The submitted quantitative POR projects must meet the following criteria:

a) Final deliverables for all projects must have been completed in the last five (5) years preceding the bid closing date.
b) Bidder includes a brief attestation of performance for all projects signed by the client or confirmed by the client by email for each project submitted. The attestations should clearly reference the specific project and state that the work was conducted to the satisfaction of the client. A client attestation template is included as Appendix 2 to Annex C.
c) At least one of the submitted projects has a total of at least 2,500 respondents.
d) At least one of the submitted projects has Canadian federal, provincial/territorial or municipal employees as the target population.
e) Each of the following tasks has been carried out in at least one of the submitted projects: (Note that different tasks can be assigned to any of the submitted projects, provided that each task was carried out by the Bidder in at least one of the projects.)
i. Programming English and French versions of a Web questionnaire with ability to toggle between English and French versions.
ii. Providing services in both official languages (e.g, client liaison, telephone help-line, mailbox)
iii. Programming Web questionnaire involving complex skip logic
iv. Dealing with challenging IT situations and implementing mitigation strategies, (e.g. IT environment/troubleshooting of IT issues)
v. Ensuring usability of Web questionnaire on mobile devices 
vi. Ensuring usability of Web questionnaire with adaptive technologies (e.g., screen readers)
vii. Setting up and maintaining a generic email account for respondents (e.g., to answer respondent questions)
viii. Setting up and maintaining a telephone help line for respondents (e.g., to answer respondent questions)
ix. Sending email invitations containing a link to the survey with an embedded unique access code 
x. Collecting and verifying bounce-back email invitations 
xi. Conducting dataset quality control
xii. Calculating response rates in accordance with MRIA standards
xiii. Producing weights and adjusting results for non-response
xiv. Applying  suppression rules to protect the confidentiality of responses
xv.  Producing aggregate datasets
xvi. Writing a methodological report


POINT RATED EVALUATION CRITERIA

R.1:  UNDERSTANDING THE REQUIREMENTS AND TASKS LISTED IN THE STATEMENT OF WORK AND DEMONSTRATING ABILITY TO CARRY THEM OUT

The Bidder should provide a response to R.1 that reflects its understanding of the following Statement of Work requirements and demonstrates its approach to carrying them out. The Bidder should also provide a description of potential challenges/problems that could arise and how each will be addressed.

a) Programming English and French versions of a Web questionnaire with option to toggle between English and French
b) Programming a Web questionnaire involving complex skip logic
c) Sending email invitations containing a link to the survey with an embedded unique access code 
d) Collecting and verifying bounce-back email invitations 
e) Conducting dataset quality control
f) Producing weights and adjusting results for non-response
g) Applying suppression rules to protect the confidentiality of responses
h) Producing aggregate datasets


R.2:  DEMONSTRATING CAPABILITY

a) Server Capacity - The Bidder should have capacity to handle a large scale survey.

The Bidder should provide evidence that its Canadian servers and back up servers have the capacity to handle a large scale survey *, including sending a large number of email invitations containing links to the survey with embedded unique access codes, and handling a large number of concurrent connections. The Bidder should also provide a description of potential challenges/problems that could arise and how each will be addressed, as well as information on the Bidder’s relevant experience. 

*A total of approximately 300,000 email invitations will be sent over a maximum period of 5 consecutive weekdays.

b) Anticipating, identifying and resolving IT-related issues - The Bidder should have the ability to anticipate, identify and resolve IT-related issues such as departmental firewall restrictions, Web interoperability and usability of the Web Questionnaire on mobile devices.

The Bidder should demonstrate its ability to anticipate, identify and resolve IT-related issues, such as departmental firewall restrictions, Web interoperability and Usability of the Web questionnaire on mobile devices. The Bidder should also provide a description of potential challenges/problems that could arise and how each will be addressed, as well as information on the Bidder’s relevant experience.

c) Accessibility of Web Questionnaire - The Bidder’s Web Questionnaire should conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA or higher (or latest standard at time of bid closing).

The Bidder should demonstrate how they will ensure that the Web questionnaire conforms with the most current Treasury Board Standard on Web Accessibility at time of bid closing, and how the Bidder will ensure the Web questionnaire remains compliant over the course of the contract:
1) Describe in detail the design and testing approaches, as well as the tools and mechanisms that will be used to assess the accessibility of the Web questionnaire 
2) Confirm if the platform that will be used for the Web questionnaire currently conforms to WCAG 2.0, and indicate the level of WCAG 2.0 conformance achieved by the platform :
a) If the platform currently conforms to WCAG 2.0 Level AA, share the testing report or a completed Web Experience Toolkit questionnaire (https://ssl-templates.services.gc.ca/app/cls/wet/intranet/v4_0_16/demos/wamethod/wamethod-AAA-en.html).
b) If the platform does not currently conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA, share a roadmap to achieving compliance for the Web questionnaire.


R.3:  RESOURCE QUALIFICATIONS - SURVEY MANAGER

The CV of the proposed Survey Manager will be evaluated as follows:

a) Academic qualifications / training / certifications / publications / awards and memberships relevant to the design, conduct and reporting of quantitative public opinion research.

b) Work experience - The Bidder should provide the total number of years of experience relevant to managing quantitative public opinion research projects for the Survey Manager.


R.4:   RESOURCE QUALIFICATIONS - SENIOR RESEARCHER(S)

a) Academic qualifications / training / certifications / publications / awards and memberships relevant to the design, conduct and reporting of quantitative public opinion research.

b) Work experience - The Bidder should provide the total number of years of experience relevant to conducting and reporting on quantitative public opinion research for up to two Senior Researchers.

c) Sample project - The Bidder should provide one quantitative public opinion research (POR) sample project completed in the last five years for each Senior Researcher proposed to work on the project. Projects completed beyond 5 years will not be evaluated further. Sample project(s) can be the same as the project(s) submitted as part of M2, but do not have to be.


R.5:  CORPORATE EXPERIENCE - SAMPLE PROJECTS

a) The experience and expertise of the Bidder, as demonstrated in the sample projects, is relevant to the statement of work requirements

b) Number of respondents

c) Target population


BASIS OF SELECTION

Highest Combined Rating of Technical Merit and Price

1. To be declared responsive, a bid must: 

a. comply with all the requirements of the bid solicitation; and

b. meet all mandatory criteria; and

c. obtain the required minimum points specified for each criterion for the technical evaluation, and 

d. obtain the required minimum of 570 points overall for the technical evaluation criteria which are subject to point rating. The rating is performed on a scale of 950 points. 

2. Bids not meeting (a) or (b) or (c) and (d) will be declared non-responsive. 

3. The selection will be based on the highest responsive combined rating of technical merit and price. The ratio will be 60% for the technical merit and 40% for the price. 

4. To establish the technical merit score, the overall technical score for each responsive bid will be determined as follows: total number of points obtained / maximum number of points available multiplied by the ratio of 60%.

5. To establish the pricing score, each firm price or rate will be prorated against the lowest firm price or rate for each individual category of service. The ratio of 40% will be divided against the five (5) main category services as follows:

30/40 - Bid Evaluation Value (BEV)
2/40 - Option 1: Average Firm Unit Price for Additional Surveys
4/40 - Option 2: Average Firm Unit Price for 5 Additional Supplemental Questions
4/40 - Option 3: Average Firm Unit Price for 10 Additional Supplemental Questions

6. For each responsive bid, the technical merit score and the pricing score will be added to determine its combined rating. 

7. Neither the responsive bid obtaining the highest technical score nor the one with the lowest evaluated price will necessarily be accepted. The responsive bid with the highest combined rating of technical merit and price will be recommended for award of a contract. 


All solicitation documents must be obtained through http://buyandsell.gc.ca/tenders




Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.