WT 360: The market from all angles

The presidential transition is underway, sort of, and other issues are weighing on the market. In this episode of Project 38, Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman leads a discussion with his colleagues from WT and FCW about what the transition means as well as other issues having an impact on the government contracting market. FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian talks transition, while WT Sen...

For this episode of Project 38, Katie Bilek and Stephanie Alexander, the founders and matchmakers at Govmates, return (with a Zoom assist) to Project 38 to help us turn a closer lens on small business and non-traditional government contracting amid the pandemic. The Govmates duo say that GovCon has mostly fared well so far through the pandemic. But they are also here to caution that some agencies...

Discussions around unconscious or implicit bias have become more common in the months since the killing of George Floyd, and President Trump’s recent executive order banning certain kinds of bias and discrimination training are a pushback against the notion that unconscious bias even exists. In this episode of Project 38, diversity and inclusion expert Minal Bopaiah tells Editor Nick Wakeman what...

Fiscal year 2020 just wrapped up and that presents an opportunity to both look back upon those 12 months and look ahead to the next. In this episode of Project 38, Bloomberg Government’s senior defense analyst Rob Levinson helps us do just that as we review how civilian agencies put their contracting dollars to work in fiscal 2020. The coronavirus pandemic response led to a 17 percent spike in con...

Don't sell small town America short. In this episode, Brendan Walsh from 1901 Group talks about how today's tech revolution is creating an opportunity to build a successful business in rural America. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic became a large-scale technology and business disrupter, the Fourth Industrial Revolution was underway with growing adoption of technologies around the Internet of Thi...

The COVID-19 crisis has forced agencies and companies to field a dispersed workforce that relies on technology to stay productive and connected. In this episode of Project 38, Gary Hix of Hitachi Vantara Federal discusses how much those change could be permanent. As the company’s chief technology officer, Hix keeps a close eye on the IT challenges government agencies face now and the emerging chal...

NCI Information Systems is navigating its way past some headwinds with a focus on artificial intelligence solutions and a move away from low-price contracts. In another of our Top 100 podcasts, CEO Paul Dillahay tells Editor Nick Wakeman where the company sees its future opportunities and some early signs of success along with challenges he sees on the horizon.

The last month has brought more than its share of important news for government contractors as well as their agency customers. In this Project 38 podcast a panel of leading journalists discuss some of the pressing topics of concern for the GovCon market. FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian, Washington Technology Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers, and FCW Senior Editor Lauren Williams join WT Editor...

In part two of our interview with Leidos' business development chief Roy Stevens, he talks about how the 2016 merger with Lockheed Martin's services business continues to pay dividends today and how more recent acquisitions are positioning the company for new opportunities. Even though Leidos is the No. 1 company on our Top 100, it sees a need to evolve and grow as the market changes. Stevens shar...

In this episode of Project 38, Nazzic Keene shares her thoughts and perspective after one year as CEO of Top 100 company Science Applications International Corp. Keene started the year with three priorities and she talks with Editor Nick Wakeman about how those priorities continue to drive the company forward, with some tweaks and adjustments of course. Keene also goes over the integrations of Uni...

In this episode of Project 38, we hear from top public sector executives at the 2020 Washington Technology Top 100’s three highest-ranked telecommunications firms on their work to keep government agencies and people connected during the coronavirus pandemic. Almost overnight, the COVID-19 situation created a vast dispersed workforce that sees many people based at home and all of them primarily usi...

In our continuing series of Top 100 related podcasts, Serco Inc. CEO Dave Dacquino explains how the company started laying the groundwork years ago for a monster 2019. Last year, Serco Group's U.S. subsidiary posted 20 percent organic growth and closed the $336 million acquisition of the Navy design business of Alion Science & Technology. But getting there required serious soul searching and a...

Rarely does a blue chip defense hardware company close two deals it views as transformational in the same calendar year. In this episode of Project 38, BAE Systems Inc. Tom Arseneault explains the thinking for why the company moved quickly to put its best foot forward for a military GPS business and airborne radio unit formerly of Raytheon Technologies. The British defense company’s U.S. subsidiar...

In this episode, Roy Stevens, executive vice president and chief of business development and strategy for Leidos, the No. 1 company on the Top 100, shares insights on how Leidos chased two of the biggest contracts of the year. The company pursued and won the $6.5 billion Global Solutions Management Operations contract or GSMO. Leidos was the incumbent on that one. They also successfully challenged...

Companies in the government market always cast glances at the budget, but now they are zeroed in on whether they will see a key piece of legislation to help them manage through the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode of Project 38, Kea Matory of the National Defense Industrial Association updates us on where the situation is regarding Section 3610 of the CARES Act economic stimulus law that expires...

As chief technology officer for Science Applications International Corp., Charles Onstott is constantly looking to understand new technologies and how they can be applied to customer problems. In this episode of Project 38, he explains some myriad ways the COVID-19 pandemic has become a trigger for innovation. The virus is changing how we work, the kind of health care services we need and even the...

Defense policy expert and attorney Samantha Clark explains the far ranging implications of a new rule that bans agencies from awarding contracts to companies using or selling telecommunications equipment from certain China based companies Clark, special counsel at law firm Covington and Burling, talks with senior staff writer Ross Wilkers to help understand what this new rule means and how governm...

Reporters from FCW and Washington Technology discuss the latest news including the cancellation of Alliant 2 SB, the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, and the direction Lockheed Martin's new CEO is taking the company. Ross Wilkers from WT and Lauren Williams and Mark Rockwell from FCW join host Nick Wakeman in a roundtable discussion of the latest news in the market. They dig beyond the hea...

The continuing acceleration of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the simultaneous revival of diversity and social justice movements in the United States can be overwhelming. In this episode of Project 38, we attempt to distill what it all means with the help of Capitol Hill veteran and GovCon community leader Tonya Saunders. Saunders watches how policy sets the environment in which government con...

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the defense industrial base through a stress test unlike any other but one that did have some groundwork laid before it. In this episode of Project 38, John Luddy of the Aerospace Industries Association explains what the sector was concerned about before the pandemic and what this national emergency has highlighted. AIA is one of the major trade groups that represents...

Deltek's annual Clarity report is a yearly snapshot of the industry that looks at people, processes and best practices in the government contracting industry. But in the midst of a pandemic that has turned the world of contractors and customers upside down, the report offers an opportunity to focus on what companies can do to improve and how they compare to their peers. Editor-in-Chief Nick Wakema...

The conversation about diversity in the national security and overall public sector ecosystem goes through peaks and troughs, and the past month would certainly qualify as a peak period. Get a glimpse at how talk and action go hand-in-hand in this episode of Project 38 with Maggie Feldman-Piltch, founder and CEO of #NatSecGirlSquad. Feldman-Piltch lives and breathes the subject of what she and the...

Successful companies have always had closely-aligned sales and marketing teams, but the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the usual way of doing business, creating a significant challenge across the market. Allan Rubin, head of marketing at ORock Technology and recognized expert in the field, shares how sales and marketing teams can stay aligned in a world where traditional activities such as liv...

David Berteau sees the myriad ways the coronavirus pandemic from his perch as President and CEO of the Professional Services Council. In this episode of the Project 38 podcast, Berteau shares his thoughts on the health of the market and where it could go from here. PSC is the leading voice of government services companies to federal agencies and lawmakers. Those firms' services cover a broad swath...

How do the widely-reported disruptions in global IT supply chains caused by COVID-19 impact both the federal government and its leading systems integrators? We take an “outside-in” approach to finding some answers in this episode with Michael Hong and Jeff Sorensen of Kearney’s public sector practice. Why call it “outside-in” for this conversation? Federal agencies and their largest IT product and...