WT 360: The market from all angles

BlueHalo as the market knows it today is around four years old with a strategy centered around space, cyber, directed energy and other key tech priority areas for the U.S. military and allied forces. Now the defense technology integrator is joining forces with another like it that has the same private equity owner in Arlington Capital Partners. In this episode, BlueHalo's chief executive Jonathan...

Guidehouse was owned by one of the government market's most active private equity firms in Veritas Capital until its December sale to one of the investment world's cornerstone names. In this episode, Guidehouse's chief executive Scott McIntyre describes the blueprint laid out by the company and its new owners Bain Capital with respect to what's next and how they plan to get there. A bulk of that c...

Google's cloud environment now has license to host secret and top secret data , which is a must-have for the company in its pursuit of large opportunities at defense and intelligence agencies especially. Frank Konkel, editor-in-chief for GovExec's publications including us, had a front-row seat to that announcement and at Google's flagship cloud conference April 9-11 in Las Vegas. In this episode,...

Once passed and signed into law, the National Defense Authorization Act lays out the Pentagon's policy priorities and dictates how and where its appropriated funds are to be used. The NDAA also functions as a roadmap for companies to shape their business strategies as explained in this episode featuring Luis Avila and Stephanie Smith, government contracting market analysts at RSM. Avila and Smith...

The Defense Department has a new industrial cybersecurity strategy in place to help contractors improve their data and network security postures with a particular focus on small businesses. DOD's emphasis on cyber through that strategy and beyond is an ongoing storyline that Lauren Williams stays on top of for Defense One , a sibling publication of Washington Technology. For this episode, Lauren e...

It definitely feels like the tide is turning against noncompete agreements across the country: five states ban them outright, while many others have restrictions on when they can be enforced and on whom. The Federal Trade Commission's effort to make these pacts illegal in the U.S. has a long runway ahead of it before becoming official, but is still a move that the government contracting ecosystem...

The federal government has several large technology initiatives underway such as improving customer experience and leveraging artificial intelligence. Those issues are at the heart of what Natalie Alms writes about for NextGov/FCW, one of several sibling publications for Washington Technology. She dives into those topics and more in this conversation with WT Editor Nick Wakeman.  From her perch, N...

The final Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification rule is still months or maybe even a full year away, but the heart of rule will not change: standard 800-171 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In this episode, Fortinet's federal chief technology officer Felipe Fernandez tells Editor Nick Wakeman that companies should focus their efforts around the standard shaping the rul...

Rebrandings are a constant in the government market and the company now known as Everfox is the newest example of that after its acquisition by one of the world's largest investment firms. The cybersecurity business formerly known as Forcepoint Federal, and before that as Websense, now exclusively focuses on global government and critical infrastructure clients as a portfolio company of TPG.  In t...

LMI was chartered during the Kennedy administration in 1961 as a provider of logistics management services and research to the federal government, work that remains core to the firm's vision and strategy. That has not changed for LMI, but its change in 2022 from being a nonprofit to for-profit appears significant on the surface. In this episode, LMI's chief executive Doug Wagoner explains the rati...

The presence of private equity firms continues to grow in the government market because as Zach Hester says in this conversation with Editor Nick Wakeman: “It just works." Plain and simple. Most of the largest companies in the market have used acquisitions as a catalyst for organic growth. But according to Hester, the director of merger and acquisition strategy and deal generation at Bluestone Inv...

SMX can trace its history back to 1995 and that timeline includes the name Smartronix, a marker represented in the current name that seeks to balance recognizing history with continuous evolution. Digital transformation remains the core focal point of the new SMX's strategy and a main topic of this episode featuring chief executive Peter LaMontagne, who joined in 2020 as OceanSound Partners acquir...

Multiple-award contract vehicles are where a majority of the government's buying activity seems to take place these days, but the "Rule of Two" that tells agencies how to work with small businesses did not apply there. The White House has started to work on changing that through a Jan. 31 memo that tells agencies to use that golden rule of government contracting for multiple-award vehicles and the...

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification regulation may not be final for at least another year, but the Defense Department has been running a voluntary program for companies to go through a third-party assessment. That test looks at how compliant companies are with the standards at the heart of CMMC, which will formalize how contractors should protect controlled unclassified information in t...

DMI was born as a mobility solutions provider in 2002 and that remains a core component of its approach to digital transformation work with federal agencies. But another much faster-moving sector of the economy looms large in DMI's strategy for public sector. In this episode, DMI's chief executive Rocky Thurston explains to our Ross Wilkers what the auto industry teaches the company about taking m...

The rise of artificial intelligence, heightened demand for improved customer experience and the relentless pace of change are all continuing to drive the market here in 2024. In this interview with Editor Nick Wakeman, ACT-IAC's CEO David Wennergren describes both the challenges ahead for agencies and contractors, plus the for optimism. One key piece of advice from Wennergren stands out: There are...

Getting out the crystal ball to predict future developments is a hazardous exercise, but a first look at topics and conversations happening across the government contracting ecosystem can help in preparation. Our first episode of 2024 serves as that initial glimpse into what is important for the government market in this new year with the insights from Stephanie Smith, GovCon industry senior analy...

We live in a world where there are challenges on multiple fronts – the war in Ukraine, China and a continuing terrorist threat. Those challenges drive federal budgets and defense spending, which in turn set the tone for mergers and acquisitions. This episode has Jean Stack, co-lead of the investment bank Baird's defense and government services practice, join WT Editor Nick Wakeman to discuss how M...

An unusual set of circumstances looms over the entire public sector landscape with two sets of federal funding slated to run out on different dates in early 2024. What those deadlines mean for government contractors is the starting point for this episode featuring David Berteau, CEO of the Professional Services Council, one of the main trade associations representing the GovCon industry. A second...

A great amount of planning went into ASRC Federal's acquisitions of a supply chain and logistics business from Science Applications International Corp. and Broadleaf, an IT services firm. The transactions closed within two weeks of one another. What led ASRC Federal to those two businesses and where does it want to go next? In this episode, ASRC Federal's chief executive Jennifer Felix describes t...

Price and cost will always be a factor for U.S. government agencies in deciding who to choose for a contract, but not all of them just go with the lowest-bidding company for an award. How the government buyer goes about its purchasing is of equal importance to knowing what the customer is asking for, as explained in this episode featuring FedSavvy Strategies' founder and managing principal Brian L...

Aerospace, defense, government services and space represent four key focus areas for the private investment firm AE Industrial Partners and also cover practically all of the government market. Our guest for this episode in Kirk Konert, a partner at AEI, joined the firm at around the time it started to further scale out its investments in the mid-2010s. Konert describes to our Ross Wilkers how that...

Generative artificial intelligence is all the rage everywhere and those tools are being applied in multiple ways across the market, including in the proposal writing process. But even with AI's promise, its effectiveness depends on the person using the tool. Which makes AI just like any other tool we have, in that it often comes down to knowing the right questions to ask. This episode goes over ma...

Other Transaction Authority contracts have existed for many decades as alternative means for federal agencies to quickly bring in new technologies and systems when the usual acquisition processes will just not cut it. But the focus on speed puts artificial limits on the promise and potential of what OTAs can do when used correctly, as NSTXL’s founder and chief executive Tim Greeff tells our Ross W...

The prospect of a government shutdown is far from the only budgetary headwind that agencies and contractors alike have to navigate, but it is the one that causes more anxiety than any other. Funding delays and protracted procurement cycles are also facts of life in the market that are the starting point for this episode featuring John Caucis and James Wichert, public sector analysts at the market...