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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Federal government services may be a $100 billion industry but only a few centers of gravity give it some shape. The Industry Advisory Council (IAC) is one such organization. The IAC provides several means to bring together government and industry executives. In June, Ellen Glover was elected the first woman to chair the IAC. That puts her in a particularly instrumental position for improving government-industry collaboration. We discussed some facets of the evolving relationship.
If you think Washington is unspeakably boring in August, you should have caught the Frank Lanza show. Lanza is the chairman and CEO of L-3 Communications. He just bought Titan Corp. His show was a commentary on the industry that he gave to members of the Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Project advisory panel. They don't call him Frank for nothing. Lanza expounds on how the government should run acquisition and how he runs a multi-billion dollar company with over 70 operating divisions. Though he's a hardware and electronics guy, his views are highly relevant to services businesses.
There were probably many government and industry managers who would have liked to see Neal Fox head up the new GSA Federal Acquisition Service. As a GSA executive running the schedules business, he had impressed people with his drive for improvement and outspokenness. Now a consultant, Fox gave us his views about what the GSA restructuring means for companies.
No, thank you, the Insider has no reason to come up with yet another “top” list, but a new one was just updated by one of the trade mags. We explain what it's good for. There are also some interesting factoids.
There's a long list of parties that can make legitimate inquiries to your firm about your federal contracts and issues they may have. Very often, federal agencies choose to say nothing, and the typical contract prohibits you from generating any publicity, for example, muzzling replies to insistent media queries. The resulting silence can help amplify adverse publicity that may have no basis. Alan Chvotkin provides some advice on how to plan to tell your story.
GSA claims progress in small-business contracting; Monster Government takes it on the chin at DHS, but that's ignored at OPM; EDS sale of consulting subsidiary AT Kearney collapses; new line of business—keeping secrets for controlled release.