Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Introducing the Insider
The Industry Defined
HUBZones: Anyone Can Play
Beyond Reproach: The Incumbent's Bind
Breaking Wave: Human Resources BPO
Cooperative Personnel Services: Differentiating Not a Problem
Adventures in Marketing
Policy & Regs: Can We Satisfy the Appetite for Cleared Personnel?
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It's no secret that merger & acquisition firms in the federal arena have been active lately. The breakup of AMS and the sell-off of a $2B chunk of EDS announced in March are not likely the last big-firm sales we'll see this year.
But in the middle- and small-size categories, the activity is more intense. The Insider examines the trends with the help of Paul Serotkin of Minuteman Ventures, who analyzed more than 70 transactions in the last year and a half in the Defense/IT sector.
USIS is the largest private-sector provider of investigations for pre-employment screening, security clearances, and related security services in the United States. Its largest clients are the agencies you'd think of in the federal government.
Spun out of the government in 1996, the company transitioned to the private sector as an employee-owned company, but is now owned by two giant private equity firms and USIS management. Part I is the story of how a humdrum, but important, function, investigations, was taken out of the government and transitioned to be a commercial enterprise.
Part II, in a future issue, will examine the market positioning and strategies that have led to the company's preeminence in its business.
GSA Associate Administrator Marty Wagner serves as the GSA policy czar for a long list of functions that need to be coordinated governmentwide. Examples include eGovernment and acquisition. Few in government match the scope of his vantage point on federal customer-supplier relationships.
In a wide-ranging interview, he comments on a number of challenges to both industry and its government customers as they try to execute programs more successfully, and, achieve greater business success.
In a freewheeling meeting sponsored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council, three senior federal marketing experts describe what works and what doesn't in business development. The panelists were Jerry Boerner of Unisys, Marc Lieberman of GTSI, and Haskell Mayo of Software AG.
The March Insider debunked the purported renewed war for talent at the executive level of government services firms. But there's another challenge to retain and recruit skilled technical experts as business firms up—and it comes from DoD.
Under a new program that is part of the recently initiated DoD-wide civilian personnel overhaul, the government can match—or beat—the pay and benefits of companies for senior technical talent for up to six years. More than 2500 experts can be hired under the program.
Roughly, their total cost might be about $900M in equivalent government services industry revenue.
This article describes the program and industry reaction and also identifies the kind of staff in the private sector who might be most attracted to it.
Firms like McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain have dominated the "strategy" consulting business at large corporations in recent decades. Every once in a while, they take a stab at federal business. Government services firms that practice high-end management consulting need to take notice. Using their capabilities and commercial cache, these firms can readily differentiate a team or themselves when they choose to compete.
In this article, the Insider sampled what some of the firms are doing in the federal sphere.
This article recaps a snapshot of the state of commercial consulting firm business management. You may be surprised at what's new for these advisors to senior management in large American and global firms.
The President signed into law last November a measure that limits to a five-year period of performance all task and delivery order contracts at DoD and NASA. That's a large chunk of business, which is now matched by a large amount of confusion as both agencies lurch forward to implement the law.
Alan Chvotkin of the Professional Services Council reviews the government's confusing and inconsistent actions to date and advises government services firms on how to deal with the uncertainties.