DISA pushes to slash duplication with expansion of JELA program

WASHINGTON — Amid the Trump administration’s heightened focus on software modernization, the Defense Information Systems Agency is looking to expand one of its high profile software contracting vehicles called the Joint Enterprise License Agreement (JELA) program — an initiative that consolidates software contracts across the department’s services and enterprises into one agreement. 

“The thought was let’s bring our buying power together and consolidate the agreements, so therefore we get better pricing for the taxpayers, a better pricing for our budget,” David White, JELA’s program manager, told Breaking Defense in a recent interview.

The JELA initiative, which DISA established roughly 10 years ago, attempts to eliminate duplicate IT agreements across services and makes it so the Pentagon only has to go through arrangements for a contract once, as well as only pay for the desired capabilities once, White said. For example, if the Air Force and Army both have a contract from a vendor that provides the same type of capabilities, the JELA program will lump these contracts together to create one larger agreement.

“Now the JELA is more tailored towards not just streamlining the acquisition process for our mission partners, but also help managing the risks of the contract, getting everyone on the same page in terms of the modernization efforts, but then having one voice with the different industry partners that we do business with, and having that one voice allows us to get better pricing, unified terms and conditions.” 

Since the existence of the program, DISA has been able to create four consolidated JELAs across the department and is currently working on a fifth, White said. But his goal is to have seven out of the 10 largest IT contracts with duplications transition into three JELAs in the next one to three years, with most of the “planning and aligning” happening next fiscal year, he said. The vendors involved in those 10 agreements include companies “like Microsoft, ServiceNow, Adobe, Broadcom, and Cisco,” and the contracts exceed $1 billion, White said. 

Creating three JELAs within three years may prove to be tricky as typically each JELA takes about 18 months to establish, White said. 

However, he added, with the current administration’s initiatives, it may be easier to streamline this process. 

“For the JELA program, for some of the mature contracts that we had, I felt like we were already in line with the [defense secretary’s] initiatives and his desires. Yes, it does help for them to come by and say, ‘Hey, we need to consolidate even more and yes, … the DoD needs to have the best public sector agreements,”’ he said. “So that definitely helps with what we’re trying to do in our interactions with the industry.” 

When asked how JELAs are beneficial to industry partners — especially given the fact that, if they are saving the DoD money, they probably aren’t making industry money — White said the mega-agreements lessen the burden on industry. 

“Industry has been used to doing all these separate agreements, not just with Army, Air Force and Navy, but within those agencies of different commands, the different field offices, that has created a burden for industry,” White said. But with the JELAs, vendors only have to burden themselves with one agreement, he explained. 

The JELA also allows vendors to showcase their capabilities at a larger scale, which in turn could lead to more buyers, White said.

“You can’t grow at the rate that you want to grow, because each contract has different terms, and you’re not allowed to add new products. You know, there’s some cap and there’s some ceiling that limits your ability as industry partners, to scale your product or to grow under this market. So now, under this agreement, because the scope is so large, we’re able to offer more of that industry partners’ breadth of products. So that’s innovative for them in terms of cost,” he said. 

Though the JELA program has been around for nearly a decade, the Army recently announced it’s beginning to facilitate something similar with a new, potential $10 billion award to Palantir that combines 70 of the software giant’s contracts into one. The goal is similar to JELA’s: Save money and decrease duplication. 

“So it’s kind of like an a la carte menu versus an all-you-can-eat or one-size-fits-all,” Danielle Moyer, executive director of the Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen-Proving Ground, told Breaking Defense. “It’s essentially like instead of paying for the whole package of something you’re paying for what you need.”