WT 360: The market from all angles

Few observers in the federal market have the vantage point that David Berteau has in his role as CEO of the Professional Services Council, one of the main trade associations representing government contractors. He hears about the experiences of contractors of all sizes.Berteau joins this episode of Project 38 to wrap up 2022 that was for GovCon and look ahead to what 2023 is shaping up to be for the industry.Inflation, cyber and supply chain priorities, COVID vaccine mandates, and the connection between contracting and policy goals made the conversation led by our Ross Wilkers and Courtney Bublé of WT's sibling publication, Government Executive. Bublé is a staff correspondent who covers government management, which includes procurement matters.NOTE: We just so happened to have recorded this episode on the very morning that lawmakers released the text for an omnibus bill to fund federal agencies More homework for everyone involved in this discussion, it seems.

Data is a huge challenge for government customers. It is also a missed opportunity.This episode of our podcast has Editor Nick Wakeman talk with Dominic Delmolino, vice president of field technology and engineering for Amazon Web Services' public sector business, about advances in cloud computing technology.Delmolino explains how those advances can enable agencies to get better use out of the massive amounts of information they generate each day.

The government and commercial technology ecosystem is full of venture capital investors searching for companies with promising futures and to help them grow.In this episode, our Ross Wilkers speaks with two leaders at one of the market's most active venture investment firms that has been busy in putting its third fund at $340 million in capital to work after completing the raise in the fall.Mark Spoto and Matt Robinson, respectively a managing partner and vice president, explain the Razor's Edge investment thesis and the kinds of companies they look for when determining who they should back.Financial criteria is a significant component of their strategy, but so is the U.S. national defense strategy that was unveiled in the fall. Spoto and Robinson also detail how Razor's Edge uses that document to inform the firm's own strategy and decision-making on what to do with the capital.

Much has changed at ManTech over recent months, namely a new owner and new chief executive. The company is now privately-held after 20 years as a public company.But there is also stability with the transition to new CEO Matt Tait, formerly its chief operating officer. Tait shares his priorities with editor Nick Wakeman in this episode along with the marching orders he has from The Carlyle Group, the private equity group that acquired ManTech.Put simply, Carlyle wants ManTech to be ManTech. That means focusing on the national security missions of its customers and delivering innovation. In turn, Tait’s focus is on the company’s people and differentiation from competitors.He sees plenty of opportunities ahead for the company, both organically and with acquisitions.

Walter Barnes III, founder of PM Consulting, shares his small business journey with Editor Nick Wakeman in this episode and offers advice on overcoming the hurdles and challenges he’s faced in the federal market.Many small businesses share the same challenges in achieving growth and success. Barnes shares his experiences and why he made some of the choices he made, including recently teaming with private equity firm Enlightenment Capital to fuel his company's next stage of growth.All companies have to eventually decide if they want to race with stronger and faster runners, or stay in their comfort zone. Barnes has definitely chosen the former. He also knows big decisions lie ahead -- strategic hires, acquisitions and winning bigger contracts.

Both a lawyer and data scientist by training, Shubhi Mishra started Raft four years ago as a digital engineering company focused on solving problems with high degrees of difficulty.Raft's method for doing just that is "innovation theater" -- a concept Mishra explained earlier this year at an entrepreneurs forum focused on defense and does so again in this episode with our Ross Wilkers.Mishra concedes some may not view innovation theater in a positive light at first glance, but sees that model as necessary to breaking the status quo and finding solutions to federal agencies' hard challenges.She also gives an alternative view on today's talent challenge in the public sector ecosystem and why that problem also requires different thinking than many of the oft-spoken perspectives.

Plenty of hype and skepticism surrounds the metaverse, but the substance is there to be found underneath the surface.This episode of Project 38 sees Chris Copeland and Kyle Michl, respectively chief technology and chief innovation officer at Accenture's federal subsidiary, introduce our Editor Nick Wakeman metaverse and explain how the physical and digital worlds are converging.As they see it, everyone is already in the metaverse to a certain degree. The metaverse is merely new way of interacting with data and making use of it. It’s a new way of working that will touch nearly every aspect of government operations and how contractors deliver solutions to clients.Companies and agencies are already adopting the principles of the metaverse into solutions for training, modeling and simulation, and other areas. Even if they call it something else other than the metaverse.

The U.S. government goes right to the top of the food chain regarding enterprises and the amounts of data they take in and distribute.Which naturally leads to the problem of data generation outpacing the technology needed to make sense of the volume.For this episode of Project 38, Babel Street CEO Michael Southworth takes our Ross Wilkers through what dual-use technology companies such as the one he leads are up to in working with agencies on solving that data challenge.Some of the data volume statistics Southworth cited are overwhelming but illustrate the point of what problems need solving.

Companies in the government technology landscape are familiar with turbulence in the market, but that has gone to a whole new level in recent times.What they are navigating and how they are going about it is the umbrella topic of this episode that sees our Ross Wilkers exchange notes and takeaways with John Caucis and James Wichert, public sector IT analysts at the market intelligence firm Technology Business Research.Just like us: the coverage area of Caucis and Wichert encompasses federal IT integrators and the mission systems businesses at large defense companies, but with a heavy influence of how companies and technologies from other verticals are shaping the government market.The agenda for this episode includes discussion of how contractors are prioritizing their investments, headwinds such as supply chain and talent, and the evolving dynamic between integrators and cloud computing infrastructure providers.

President Biden's customer experience executive order signed in December 2021 puts technology at the center of efforts to improve how citizens obtain services from federal agencies.Which brings up these questions that are the focus of this Project 38 episode: What tech tools are best for certain efforts? How do agencies apply those tools? How do agencies go about buying them?Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers got some answers to those questions and more from Greg Gershman, co-founder and CEO of a digital services company looking to be a part of the citizen experience transformation.Gershman was one of the core team members responsible for fixing HealthCare.gov after its troubled launch and helped start Ad Hoc with the idea of using some of those lessons learned to improve government service delivery.

Mike King will quickly answer the question of whether the multiple billions of dollars spent to make Peraton, Northrop Grumman’s IT business and Perspecta into a single company were worth the money and energy.King can rattle off a series of wins as Peraton's chief growth officer. But as you will hear in this interview with Editor Nick Wakeman, King also quickly turns to subjects such as integration and the new culture Peraton has created.Peraton is working hard to make the most out of those acquisitions and position itself for future opportunities around customer missions involving cloud computing, digital transformation and cybersecurity.Throughout the conversation, King also shares what it takes to be successful in today’s market environment.

Debbie Opiekun can rattle off a list of big wins for Leidos as the company's chief business development officer, a job that carries the responsibility of feeding growth for the federal technology market's largest contractor.In this Project 38 episode with Editor Nick Wakeman, Opiekun explains Leidos' philosophy for pursuing contracts and what they mean to the missions of federal customers.Opiekun also provides insights on how Leidos decides to bid for a business opportunity, including those times where the company decides not to go for it.

Booz Allen Hamilton wants to show the startup community it is serious about helping take their technologies into the U.S. public sector ecosystem.So much so that Booz Allen has stood up a venture capital organization to invest in emerging tech firms and given that team an initial $100 million in funding to start out with.Why formalize it after having already made three such investments? Here to explain why and the gameplan for Booz Allen Ventures is Brian MacCarthy, vice president of tech scouting and ventures.MacCarthy explains the goals of Booz Allen Ventures as including finding dual-use technologies that can be scaled for government missions, letting product development companies remain such and keeping customers at the forefront of tech adoption.

Seven months ago, government market veterans George Batsakis and Jerad Speigel launched their partnership with a vision to create a middle-tier company that fills what they see as a gap in the landscape.Their creation of Groundswell through three acquisitions and a rebranding presents a company whose services center around low-code/no-code application development and digital transformation, among others.Groundswell's specific focus right now is on the Appian enterprise software offering but there is more to come, as Batsakis and Spiegel explain to Editor Nick Wakeman.

Amentum certainly has been a fast-moving consolidator since its launch as an independent government services company in 2020 with two large acquisitions since then.So what's next on Amentum's agenda? CEO John Heller updates our Ross Wilkers on the integration of PAE into Amentum, which wrapped up the integration of DynCorp International when Heller became CEO in March.Company no. 12 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings is a nearly $9 billion-annual revenue business with close to 50,000 employees around the world supporting U.S. and allied government programs.Heller explains Amentum's rationale for scale and capability as both being interconnected and in-line with what the customer wants its contractors to have: broad offerings on the procurement cycle's end-to-end timeline that includes everything from technology infusion and development, to the operations-and-maintenance aspects of platforms.

Maximus is just getting started on its new strategy for the next three to five years after a series of large acquisitions to reposition the company for new opportunities.Those have taken place as the pandemic exposed multiple weaknesses in how services are delivered to citizens, but company no. 19 on our 2022 Top 100 sees those gaps as space to grow.For this episode, CEO Bruce Caswell and federal business leader Teresa Weipert talked with Editor Nick Wakeman about the changes at the company and how Maximus is melding its old culture with new ones.

Accenture Federal Services has used acquisitions to transform itself and sees its purchase of Novetta as yet another opportunity to reimagine the way it operates.This episode of Project 38 is a deep dive into the journey company no. 13 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings is now on as told by Tiffanny Gates, former Novetta CEO and now AFS' national security portfolio leader; and Ira Entis, growth and strategy leader.They update WT Editor Nick Wakeman on how the integration has gone, what's changed about the combined business, and the opportunities and challenges they see ahead.Some market trends are driven by technology and others by evolving customer missions. Government customers want to make better and faster decisions. That desire drives decisions around data, technology and processes.

Company no. 10 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings views its embrace of disruption both within itself and from the outside looking in as necessary for the business and Defense Department customer equally.L3Harris Technologies' move in that direction is the focus of this episode featuring our Ross Wilkers with Sean Stackley, president of the company's integrated mission systems segment and a former assistant navy secretary for research, development and acquisition.Stackley explains what L3Harris means in talking about itself as the "Trusted Disruptor" and how these two moves by the company earlier this year are part of that identity: a new agile development group, and a partnership with investment firm Shield Capital to work with startup technology firms.Embracing those dual-use technologies made in commercial markets but scalable for the government is key to L3Harris' vision of being the "Trusted Disruptor" and shows how the shape of innovation has changed, as Stackley explains.

Lumen Technologies' corporate mission is to help enterprise organizations capitalize on the convergence of digital, physical and bio technologies commonly called the "Fourth Industrial Revolution."What that means for federal and public sector customers is a pillar of this episode featuring our Ross Wilkers' interview with Zain Ahmed, senior vice president of Lumen's public sector business.Ahmed explains how company no. 31 our 2022 Top 100 rankings strives to ensure that agencies are not overwhelmed by their adoption and modernization journeys.The discussion agenda also includes where things stand today on agencies' transitions to the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract, which was awarded five years ago and is intended as the government's main vehicle for modernizing their networks.

Parsons Corp. was born an engineering company in 1944 and remains such today in a world vastly different than the one it started in.Company number 39 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings is also equally a software business in both its government and infrastructure markets as told to us by Peter Torrellas, president of the company's connected communities business.Our senior reporter Ross Wilkers spoke to Torrellas in conjunction with Parsons' official unveiling of a new solution set and delivery model, which helps explain where the company is going and how it sees markets as becoming converged.Regarding that word "converged" -- do any lines exist anymore between what is digital and what is physical? Wilkers asks that question too and Torrellas answered.

Change is a prevalent theme among Top 100 companies as they constantly adapt to customer needs, technology trends and competitive pressures.The focus of this Project 38 episode is NCI Information Systems' rebrand and relaunch as Empower AI 33 years after its founding -- a story that should resonate across the market.CEO Paul Dillahay explains to Editor Nick Wakeman how that change was years in the making and is much more than just swapping out one name for another. It’s also not just about picking a strategy and sticking to it, but letting all of that transform a company.

Hot technologies come and go, but building person-to-person relationships is ultimately what drives success.Marketing experts Mark Amtower and Sheri Ascencio share the story of their mentor-protégé relationship with Editor Nick Wakeman. While Amtower is the mentor, they describe a relationship where the value flows in both directions.Their bottom-line advice is that everyone needs a mentor and everyone eventually should look to be a mentor. No one succeeds alone.

Private equity in the government market is a two-way street in that many companies are looking for a investment partner to resource them, the latter of which also is looking for a business opportunity.For this episode of Project 38, Sagewind Capital's founding partner Steve Lefkowitz and managing partner Raj Kanodia take our Ross Wilkers behind the scenes of how their private equity firm works with contractors to build and grow.The conversation naturally turns to how the search for acquisitions goes for Sagewind's portfolio companies: Axient, By Light, Federal Advisory Partners, Gcom and Sigma Defense Systems.But in a portfolio company is also step one in many ways, so Lefkowitz and Kanodia also explain how Sagewind works with businesses on organic growth and infrastructure they need to succeed.

DeEtte Gray, president of CACI International’s business and information technology solutions sector, counts herself lucky because she had role models ahead of her. But more work remains to be done even though female leaders have come a long way.For this episode of Project 38, Gray explains to Editor Nick Wakeman how she acts as role model and coach to others . She shares her best advice for future female executives -- take on challenges, be courageous, be confident and be prepared.

As president of CACI International’s business and information technology solutions segment, DeEtte Gray is responsible for delivering enterprise expertise and enterprise technology to CACI's customers. Her sector will account for about 45 percent of the company’s $6.2 billion in expected 2022 revenue.That’s a huge piece of business to keep on a growth trajectory and in this episode of Project 38, she describes to Editor Nick Wakeman her strategy and how she keeps the business focused and pushing forward.This includes her philosophy for picking contracts to pursue and building the capabilities that will differentiate CACI from competitors. The last thing she wants is to be in price shoot-out. Instead, she focuses on timing, competition, and CACI’s discriminators. And of course, you have to have the right answer to the question, “Why hire us?”

A shortlist of today's stressors on the federal technology ecosystem include not enough high-quality computer chips to go around and other supply chain shortages, which are taking place amid the digital transformation push inside government.But as part of this Project 38 episode, World Wide Technology's public sector leader Bryan Thomas tells our Ross Wilkers that commercial enterprises are going through much of the same dynamics as government agencies.The main difference is found in the tools and methods businesses have to navigate those challenges, which Thomas points to as a matter mostly of policy and buying practices within government.He also triangulates how technology, talent and investments relate to one another with the goal of both bringing government IT systems into the modern age and bringing more workers into the public sector ecosystem.

Finding one’s niche in the vast and sometimes opaque world of artificial intelligence is a daunting task for many businesses amid the ongoing AI hype cycle.In this episode of Project 38, SparkCognition’s government leader Logan Jones explains to our Ross Wilkers the company’s self-touted “full-spectrum AI” strategy and how they are working to map it with what the Defense Department is trying to achieve in AI.AI is a means to the end as Jones sees it, rather than being the end, so the conversation gets into technologies intended to feed into the larger solution.Check out these articles from WT and its partner publications for more background:SparkCognition's government shop names lead execDOD Debuts Office to Help It 'Move Faster' on Artificial IntelligencePentagon adds new top AI roleDOD's AI portfolio skews toward research, GAO reports

Putting widely held beliefs to the test and challenging each other is a necessary exercise for any team to succeed and stay on that path of success.For this episode of Project 38, FedSavvy Strategies’ leader Bring Lindholm breaks down to our Ross Wilkers how he sees businesses in the government market repeatedly falling into the same patterns of decision-making when it comes to their pursuits.Lindholm and his FedSavvy teammates recently dove deep into some common misconceptions they run into with their Deadly Sins in Proposals series and this opinion article written for us -- Can you spot your Achilles' heel in your next pursuit?As Lindholm sees it, arming one’s company with information and deeper understanding translates to being smarter in how they spend their dollars. This episode is intended as a roadmap for how to get there.

Maggie Hallbach was nearly 18 months into her time at Verizon’s federal unit when she got the call to lead the telecommunications giant’s entire public sector portfolio.For this episode of Project 38, Hallbach describes to our Ross Wilkers how she leans on experienced gained in a previous role at Verizon’s state and local government business and other key agenda items since her promotion in February.One of Hallbach’s main priorities will be Verizon’s growth and execution on the so-called “EIS” contract vehicle for network modernization solutions. Where agencies are on their modernization path is a mixed bag however and Hallbach sheds light into Verizon’s conversations with customers on that front.Taking what Verizon does on the 5G front in consumer markets into the federal environment is always top of mind for whomever leads public sector, so Hallbach shares her perspective on that leg of the company's continued strategy focused on being the "indispensable partner."

Several factors are driving today’s record-setting pace of merger-and-acquisition pace such as access to capital, highly valued public companies, and increasing numbers of private equity firms.But Kate Troendle and Marc Marlin of the investment bank KippsDeSanto also see the government market as maturing and getting more sophisticated, as they explain in this interview with editor Nick Wakeman.Today’s environment sees a broader range of transactions beyond the traditional one company buying another variety. Small companies are buying others just like them, while other deals just focus on specific contract vehicle positions. Larger companies are divesting so they can shape and hone their portfolios.Troendle and Marlin also see the momentum continuing in 2022 and even if the volume pulls back a bit, they believe the M&A landscape will remain substantial and robust.

One power of mergers and acquisitions is the way they can transform business and suddenly give a presence with added customers and capabilities.For Gunnison Consulting, closing three transactions over less than 18 months has pushed the company from its status as a small business to solidly in the middle tier. In this conversation between Gunnison CEO Gil Dussek and Editor Nick Wakeman, we hear about that journey and how it is just a beginning for the company.Gunnison nearly doubled in size through its most recent purchase of Centerpoint, which brought the acquirer more full-and-open business and a new governmentwide contract vehicle.Dussek shares the company’s strategy and how he sees the federal market changing.

The reality of operating in the government market is that organic growth is both hard to achieve and sustain, which explains much of the merger-and-acquisition activity that never ends.But why is it so hard to begin with? That is the launch pad of this latest episode on federal market M&A that sees our Ross Wilkers interview Stephanie Johnson, government contracting senior analyst and valuation services director at RSM.Johnson’s dual-hatted role at the professional services firm positions her as both an informed watcher of the overall market and practitioner who deciphers what drives true value in a government contractor.Much of this conversation between Wilkers and Johnson sees her illuminate some myths about valuation that have a degree of truth to them but are not always what they seem on the surface, as well as how companies should think about the notion of their future scale and not just today’s.

With two acquisitions in 2021 and another already in the works for 2022, Booz Allen Hamilton has shed its reputation as a reluctant buyer.In fact, the company has closed eight of them since 2014. But in the recent years, the transactions have become larger and more frequent.But don’t call Booz Allen consolidator. Chief Strategy Officer Matt Calderone explains to Editor Nick Wakeman in this episode of Project 38 how the company's activity isn't about adding scale, but is focused more on bringing in businesses that bring new capabilities and customers to accelerate growth.

Cracking the code of the federal market is a dual exercise of first learning the extensive rules of the road and then finding what works in achieving business success.In this episode of Project 38, Mike Sanders, founder and CEO of small business contractor Interactive Government Holdings shares his roadmap and playbook with our Ross Wilkers.It is true that some of the challenges to success in the federal market are unique for small businesses, but Sanders sees the sector’s biggest challenge as one that companies of all shapes and sizes share in along with their agency customers.Some of the are the same as well as Sanders sees a common goal: the market’s tent becoming more open and wider.

Predicting how the future will play out is a next-to-impossible art becoming even harder, but knowing the landscape and what is important in that landscape helps you prepared for the future.This episode of Project 38 looks at the megatrends in technology and talent that are poised to shape the public sector ecosystem in 2022 as outlined to our Ross Wilkers by Mike Canning, leader of Deloitte’s government and public services practice.At the end of each year, the entire Deloitte team contributes to the firm’s annual “Tech Trends” report that is their outlook on the most important technology areas and events to watch in the coming year.Both tech and talent are of course intertwined and it is people that is very front-of-mind for Canning, who also provided Wilkers some updates on an acquisition Deloitte closed near the end of 2021.

In this episode of Project 38, Maximus Federal President Teresa Weipert shares what is driving the business forward as it integrates two critical acquisitions and brings new solutions to customers.She discusses with Editor Nick Wakeman how a focus on better outcomes leads her strategy and that can mean improving technologies, processes or systems. Most often: it is some combination of all three.

Amy Gilliland runs a multibillion-dollar enterprise as president of General Dynamics IT and believes listening, mentorship and trust are all critical elements for GDIT's success.For this second in a two-part episode, Gilliland shares more with Editor Nick Wakeman on her approach expands on how the people part of the business is as important as any technology or service that a government contractor can provide to its customers.Gilliland talks about how she makes connections throughout her business and how what seem like small decisions add up to major impacts. She believes both professional and personal mentors are crucial no matter where anyone sits in an organization.

As president of General Dynamics IT, Amy Gilliland runs one of the federal market's largest technology services businesses. She also oversaw one of the biggest integration efforts when GD doubled its portfolio through the acquisition of CSRA in 2018.In this interview with Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman, she overviews the mechanisms put in place to combine the two businesses and how they laid the foundation for how the company responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief among those is a focus on people. They were important for the integration post-merger, but will be even more crucial for the long-term success of GDIT.Understanding technology and customer priorities are just “table stakes,” according to Gilliland. People are what differentiates a company from the field.

The Justice Department is showing more intent to hold companies that do business with federal agencies accountable for not disclosing data breaches and following cybersecurity standards to prevent them.How does Justice plan to do that? Via existing authorities under the False Claims Act that imposes financial liability on businesses and people found to have defrauded governmental programs.So what should contractors take heed of and act on? This episode of Project 38 aims to answer that question with the help of Susan Cassidy and Ashden Fein: partners at the law firm Covington who specialize in government contracting, cyber and national security.As Cassidy and Fein tell our Ross Wilkers, what companies that work with the government should do today is more of a fine-tuning internal processes than developing new ones. But DOJ’s comments on what it plans to do are putting industry on notice given all the various cyber breaches of federal networks and critical infrastructure, and when considering the U.S. government is the largest collector of data anywhere.

Stephanie Mango did not join CGI Federal as its new leader to fix a problem, but she also told Editor Nick Wakeman “nothing was broken but everything can be better.”In this episode, Mango explains what that mantra means for the CGI Federal Team and her leadership approach since she became president earlier this year.CGI Federal’s strategy continues to evolve as customers ask for greater modernization and improved security.Organic growth will be key to how CGI Federal pursues that strategy, but inorganic growth is always an option too as evidenced by the recent acquisition of Array Information Technologies. Mango sees growing opportunities for CGI Federal’s approach that melds technical expertise, innovation and global commercial best practices as the company develops partnerships with customers. She also keeps a focus on her employees, many of whom also are shareholders in CGI.

Information technology has long been both an enabler of and disruption to business operations, plus a target for cyber breaches by people and organizations trying to do some disrupting of their own.But what of the world of operational technology that controls industrial equipment and processes? In this episode of Project 38, Forescout public sector executive Tim Jones takes our Ross Wilkers through the intersection of cyber and OT.Part of that conversation also means learning how IT and OT are becoming increasingly converged, or sometimes one-and-the-same. As a regional vice president of systems engineering, Jones sees that first-hand not just with federal agencies but many of the systems integrators that Forescout partners with on large technology programs.Jones explains what the Biden administration’s cyber executive order and series of sprints means for the entire government OT ecosystem and the kind of starting point it could be.

Digital Management Inc. believes it has done just fine on its own for the last 19 years. Founder and CEO Sunny Bajaj set a course that included being an early entrant to digital modernization and a mobile-first approach to solutions.The company found success in both the commercial and public sector markets, which right now represent a 60-40 split of the business mix. They’ve also completed nine acquisitions over the last decade.But Bajaj sees the federal market's appetite growing for the digital transformation that DMI can deliver. To strike while the iron is hot, he turned to the private equity group OceanSound Partners for an infusion of resources to fuel organic growth and support more acquisitions.In this episode of Project 38, Bajaj explains to Editor Nick Wakeman why he picked a private equity partner over a strategic buyer and why that puts the company toward bigger and better things.

Infrastructure becoming increasingly digitized and federal agencies showing a willingness to try new ways to buy goods and services are two trends that Siemens' federal leader Tina Dolph lives and works with everyday. In this episode of Project 38, the CEO of Siemens Government Technologies explains to our Ross Wilkers how those topics are changing conversations with customers.One line of discussion gaining increasing prominence that Dolph sheds light on is how cybersecurity is no longer just an information technology problem, but one that also poses a threat to operational technology.Digitization of doing business kept things running during the pandemic. And Dolph also shares how she, the SGT team and their clients want to incorporate all they have learned from that experience.

In another of our Reporter Roundtables, Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman leads a discussion with FCW editors and reporters on today's hot topics and there have been plenty.FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian talks about challenges the Veterans Affairs Department is facing with the rollout of the Cerner electronic health record.Senior Editor and Defense Reporter Lauren Williams gives her take on CMMC 2.0 -- the Defense Department's reboot of its standard for contractors to certify their cybersecurity practices and posture.Natalie Alms covers the federal workforce: she talks about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and some of the confusion around deadlines for government employees and contractors to be fully vaccinated.

Newer and faster phones on a specific band of spectrum that work based on certain protocols and standards: that is the most frequently-cited aspect of the ongoing 5G revolution.But in this episode of Project 38, Viasat’s government business president Craig Miller says there is a much bigger picture that everyone should consider amid this transition to the next generation of mobile networks.Miller explains to our Ross Wilkers how 5G also is a foundational architecture by which different networks can be stitched together into a single construct, all in the name of them working together. Interoperability of devices and networks already in the field is crucial to making the 5G revolution work for government agencies and help them move to the next generation of communications.Fair warning: this discussion waves back-and-forth between happenings in government and commercial markets. That is by design however, given how the 5G technology standard and its predecessors have been developed and iterated over time.This discussion of network interoperability surrounds all future government networking initiatives like the Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control construct, known as JADC2.

Every company has its own journey and in this episode, Sumeet Shrivastava shares with Editor Nick Wakeman the path Array Information Technologies followed from when he joined as CEO in 2008 to its just-completed sale CGI Federal.Shrivastava describes the risks Array took such as focusing their efforts on a smaller part of the business as they positioned themselves for future growth. After an initial contraction, the company doubled in size to 300 employees and shifted from 85 percent of its revenue in small business set-aside work to 90 percent from full-and-open contracts. Then it came a time for Array to find a buyer. Shrivastava details that part of Array's journey and how they came to pick CGI Federal.Every small business faces the inflection points that Array has faced, so this first-hand account offers lessons learned and plenty of advice as companies navigate today’s market. Shrivastava shares some of the important questions businesses should ask themselves as they move from one phase to the next.

Mergers, acquisitions and private equity are important engines for innovation in the defense market as retired Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle sees it.For this episode of Project 38, the National Defense Industrial Association's CEO explains to our Nick Wakeman how the lure of a return on investment needs to be a consideration as the government regulates M&A activity.Carlisle believes domestic investors should be attracted to fund young innovative companies, which after some development and nurturing are then sold to larger U.S. defense firms. That type of investment scenario thrives in the commercial world.But today’s defense environment is still structured around a 1960s-era system for planning, programming, budgeting, and execution that Carlisle says needs to change.

Peraton’s transformation into a $7 billion-annual revenue business by integrating three big pieces -- itself, Northrop Grumman’s IT services business and Perspecta -- includes an applied research organization that can claim lineage to Bell Labs.In this episode of Project 38, Peraton Labs President Petros Mouchtaris speaks with our Ross Wilkers about the three-decade history of the team he leads and how fits within the parent company.Getting a head start on the federal government’s hardest problems is a paramount focus for Peraton Labs and this conversation goes over three big areas: cybersecurity, 5G and networks, and everything under the umbrella of automation including artificial intelligence and machine learning.Mouchtaris also explains how Peraton Labs works on this existential idea: figuring out how with a little customization and refactoring, federal agencies can use many of the same technologies that the commercial sectors do.

Merger-and-acquisition activity in the government market has maintained a stunning pace this year with transactions getting done fast and furious. Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers review some of the deals that stand out and what they say about trends driving today's market.This includes a discussion about the different investment patterns by public companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton as well as large privately-backed players like Guidehouse, with plenty of smaller acquirers in between.

The final phase of one of the federal government’s largest contract restructurings is on the horizon, but the consolidation of GSA's Multiple Award Schedule will take time and effort.So ahead of an upcoming key deadline in mid-September, this episode of Project 38 goes over everything companies need to know at this juncture of the schedule consolidation with the help of Global Services President and CEO Courtney Fairchild.All 24 Multiple Award Schedule contracts are becoming one as the General Services Administration pushes to simplify the program so industry and government alike have fewer burdens.But phase three of this effort is the most complex and is more than just an administrative action, as noted GSA Schedule watcher Fairchild points out in this conversation with our Ross Wilkers. Fairchild and her company work with clients pursuing these very contracts, so Wilkers went over some of the most common questions she is asked about the consolidation, frequent misconceptions over what it means for companies and what it will portend for the future of government contracting.