WT 360: The market from all angles

Golden Dome is the U.S.’ newest ambitious attempt to create a multi-layered defense system for protecting the mainland from incoming ballistic, hypersonic, cruise and other types of missiles. Audrey Decker , who covers the Air Force and Space Force for our partners at Defense One, has covered Golden Dome from multiple angles as ideas for it have emerged since President Trump’s January executive or...

Specifics of what the structural changes to how the federal government buys goods and services for industry remain under construction, but companies now have some clear themes from that push to work into their strategies. Tris Carpenter, general manager for strategic growth at Red Team Consulting, worked with his colleagues on an analysis of seven themes in particular that companies doing business...

The pace of change is accelerating in the market, which means we can always take a step back to understand where those changes have come from and how that drives business activities. Bill Wright, head of global government affairs at Elastic, joins for this episode to explain how the fundamentals of the Trump administration’s approach to artificial intelligence and cybersecurity line up with those...

In typical times, there is no going back after an agency tells a company their contract is being terminated for convenience of the government, which starts a settlement process cycle. But this episode featuring Jeff Shapiro, government contracting advisory and regulatory assurance partner at CohnReznick, serves as a reminder that these are not typical times in GovCon. As Shapiro explains to our Ro...

Google set off quite the reaction when the tech giant’s offer to discount its cloud-based productivity suite at 71% for all federal agencies was accepted by the General Services Administration, on behalf of those agencies . Frank Konkel, editor-in-chief for all GovExec publications including WT, went under the hood of that agreement and joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to take listeners the...

The nature of mergers and acquisitions in the government market is changing and  our 2024 roundup of closed transactions  further illustrates that evolution toward technology-enabled capabilities, which are largely driven by software. Jean Stack and John Song, co-managing directors of the defense and government practice at the investment bank Baird & Co., join for this episode to discuss what drov...

Public company acquirers ( unicorns ) certainly get everyone’s attention, but our 2024 M&A Roundup shows how the private equity collective continues to be the majority buyer and builder of midsized GovCon businesses over the years. Greg Nossaman and Greg Woodford, co-founders and managing directors at their investment bank G Squared Capital Partners, join this episode to review PE’s past and prese...

Few companies have closed as many acquisitions as CACI International. CACI has three acquisitions on our 2024 M&A Roundup : Azure Technologies, Applied Insight and Quandrint. Those moves brought to CACI a suite of offerings in cloud migration, radio frequency and electronic warfare, and digital application modernization. In this episode, CACI's chief financial officer Jeff MacLauchlan explains how...

In each year from 2004 and onward, WT publishes a report and augmenting analysis that catalogs merger-and-acquisition activity in the government market as a way to trace the history of GovCon and the companies in it. Nick and Ross begin this two-folded episode by going over the 2024 edition of that report and their highlights from it, both in terms of what we can gauge about the individual compani...

Even in a period of unprecedented change across the GovCon ecosystem, industry observers across-the-board remain certain that agencies and contractors alike will have more supply chain security requirements to navigate . Leo Alvarez, a principal in Baker Tilly’s government contractor solutions practice, joins for this episode to go over the industrial side of that equation and how contractors can...

Thales North America has a significant U.S. presence with thousands of employees and customers ranging from the Defense Department to NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration. But the subsidiary has kept a relatively low-profile compared to competitors. For this episode, Editor Nick Wakeman sits down with Thales North America CEO Alan Pellegrini to talk strategy and tends in the market. Item n...

Private capital is a broad umbrella term for several different types of investment and ownership models in business, but private equity is the one that looms the largest over GovCon and tech-centric companies there. Tiffanny Gates has a front row seat to that as an operating partner at Capitol Meridian Partners, an investor that touts itself as at the nexus of government and commercial markets. Ga...

When publicly traded companies release their financial results, the most interesting aspect of the conference calls have little to do with the numbers themselves and everything to do with trends across the market. Luis Avila, a managing director in BDO’s technology and transformation practice, joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode that is also a note-swapping exercise of sorts. Both listened to...

It goes without saying that success in the government contracting ecosystem requires more than just having good methodologies and processes, both of which are significantly enhanced by strategy and knowledge. Amber Hart and Lisa Shea Mundt, cofounders of The Pulse of GovCon, believe that taking a true “BD 360” approach to the market means enhancing all aspects of the federal sales process with the...

Few doubt that quantum computing will have a tremendous impact on the tech world and beyond. But as NextGovFCW's emerging technology reporter Alexandra Kelley explains in this episode, it is important to look beyond the buzzwords and assumptions. "Alexa," as we and other GovExec colleagues call her, walks Editor Nick Wakeman through some common misconceptions that include why just using the term “...

Ernst & Young needs little introduction as one of the world’s professional services Big Four firms, which gives it reach into every industry and ways of taking lessons learned from there into the public sector. How does EY go about doing so, while seeking to blend its consulting core with technology know-how? That is the starting point for this episode featuring Doree Keating, leader of the EY Ame...

Government contractors reside in the unique intersection of macroeconomics and industrial policy, both of which are relevant in the conversation surrounding President Trump’s use of tariffs. Tariffs are very relevant for companies that mostly focus on services to their government customers as explained in this episode featuring Larry Sher, a government contracts attorney and partner at Winston & S...

The Department of Government Efficiency is the new Trump administration’s main vehicle for at least starting the process of change at many federal agencies and on a very fast turn. Natalie Alms , who covers federal technology policy and tech workforce matters at our partner publication NextgovFCW, broke the story that DOGE’s leader Elon Musk visited the General Services Administration’s headquarte...

The first two weeks of President Trump’s second but non-consecutive term in office have brought with it a breathless pace of executive orders and other actions that government contractors must take note of. Clarity on many of those moves, including a (maybe? sort of? but not really?) freeze on certain contracting activities remains hard to come by. In this episode, Nick and Ross work through the q...

Many questions about talent in public sector often center around the hiring process and what happens after the offer letter is signed, that being the onboarding phase. Where technology fits into agencies’ efforts at making the entire lifecycle more seamless is the focus of this episode featuring Jill Jones and Yoko Jolly, respectively chief strategy officer and federal market leader at CrossVue. I...

Jacobs carved out its Critical Mission Solutions and Cyber and Intelligence businesses in late 2024, but still remains a technology company for the markets it does work in. In this episode, Shannon Miller — Jacobs' president of growth, strategy and digital — discusses how Jacobs has evolved following that divestiture of its federal-facing units to Amentum. Miller told WT Editor Nick Wakeman that J...

The ongoing transition to a Trump 2.0 administration is far from the only key happening that government contractors have to take note of and follow closely with 2025 now underway. But our first episode of this New Year has to start with transition talk. We do just that with the help of Stephanie Smith, GovCon industry senior analyst and valuation services director at the global professional servic...

The ongoing White House transition is unprecedented because before Donald Trump’s (re)-election in November, Grover Cleveland’s win in 1892 was the last time a president was voted into office with a gap between terms.  David Berteau, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, and his team are fielding many questions on the transition from government contractors they represent as one o...

When Leidos unveiled its current structure in the fall of 2023 , chief executive Tom Bell emphasized repeatability as how the company would approach its digital transformation efforts for agencies. That means Leidos has a single business segment dedicated to digital modernization and one that covers the company’s entire customer base.  In this episode, Leidos’ digital modernization president Steve...

Some jobs will require college degrees for as far as the eyes can see. But in this episode, NextgovFCW’s tech workforce reporter Natalie Alms describes how what government and business leaders call “skills-based hiring” is becoming more of the norm for certain tech jobs. As Natalie tells our Ross Wilkers, some agencies and contractors are de-emphasizing educational requirements for those roles and...