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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The Small Business Administration recently released summary statistics on the Fiscal Year 2003 award of prime contracts. For the first time, the total awarded to all types of small businesses amounted to more that one-quarter of all government contracts. The Insider reviews the numbers and cites the implications for all 21 thousand firms in the government services firms, regardless of size classification.
This article reviews the continuing financial damage of the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet program on the large system integrator. It also raises the more strategic question of what this ongoing program in trouble means for the industry. What does it say about the industry's ability to handle large requirements?
Note: this article sets the scene for exploration in a subsequent article of how the Navy and EDS are working together in some unusual ways to climb out of the deep trouble the program has meant for both organizations.
Until the end of 2003, Dan Chenok led the unit in the Office of Management and Budget that is responsible for oversight of policy in such high-visibility areas as eGovernment, the IT budget, information security, and privacy. Not only a contributor to policy development, he constantly interacted with industry in order to identify practices, technologies, and views on government policy. He also worked to promote industry activity in the government marketplace. In this interview, Chenok comments in detail on how industry and government interact. He identifies some successful, preferred ways of sharing ideas and cites some areas needing improvement.
OMB recently kicked off six months of multi-agency task forces that are in search of ways to streamline government "lines of business." Part of the complex of Federal Enterprise Architecture activities, the lines of business work is in search of areas that could benefit by consolidation and other streamlining. The next likely step: restructuring contracts affected by the function and process changes.
With reputation and revenue hurt by a number of ethical problems, Boeing has been working in a variety of ways to settle its differences with the Air Force and the Department of Defense. The latest step—hiring an ethics expert who is expected to report report to the government ethical issues from an inside-the-company vantage point.
Recently and for this year, many of the larger firms in the industry have been predicting range growth in the 15-25% range. Among other things, this quick pace sets high expectations for the publicly owned firms in the minds of analysts in the financial services industry. The Insider charts some of the major firms, including some that stand no chance of running leaders in the near term.
Congressman Tom Davis has introduced a multifaceted procurement reform bill that, among other things, proposes to make the use of share-in-savings contracts more widespread. Not a barn-burner in the IT arena where they are already enabled, this kind of contract could be applied to various kinds of non-IT-centered management improvements, under the new legislation.
The SBA is unveiling and seeking comments on a new set of size standards that are supposed to simplify and rationalize the old set. The inevitable problem is, some companies will lose their small business status while others will gain it. To grapple with this critical issue for small businesses and those who team with them, Alan Chvotkin addresses what small and large firms should do as the regulations get processed.