WT 360: The market from all angles

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What are V2X's next big steps? Apr 24, 2023

Show notes

Vectrus and Vertex joined forces in the summer of 2022 to form what is now V2X -- a global government services provider roughly double in size to approximately 14,000 employees.

For this episode, V2X's chief growth and client service officer Sue Deagle describes to our Ross Wilkers how the combined company is looking to build off that foundation and expand into new areas of the market.

One significant leg of the corporate strategy is converged infrastructure, which V2X defines as integrating digital offerings into large physical assets with the end goal of creating smarter buildings including many military bases.

V2X also has to be a scout for technologies and partners to make that converged infrastructure a reality. Deagle also explains how V2X thinks about technology and goes about identifying the right tools and partners for more than just an individual program.

All about Arcfield's strategy and investment thesis Apr 19, 2023

Show notes

Arcfield is a company whose name is slightly more than one year old, but also touts at least six decades of history behind it through the heritage of its former parent Peraton.

How Arcfield has come to be and where it is looking to go is the focus of this episode featuring chief executive Kevin Kelly, who explains to our Ross Wilkers the systems engineering provider's overall thesis and approach with the backing of private equity firm Veritas Capital.

Peraton and Arcfield both share Veritas as their owners but with a slightly different twist. Arcfield's strategy and execution is supported by on Veritas' Vantage Fund that focuses on mid-sized companies in the government technology landscape.

Kelly describes how Arcfield identifies and decides on the right larger opportunities to pursue, plus how the company thinks about further acquisitions and his perspective on overall trends in the space and national security domains.

WT 360's Info Session: The largest Navy conference, banking, cyber, and figuring out JADC2 Apr 12, 2023

Show notes

Military matters lead the agenda for this latest in WT 360's series of Info Session episodes that bring together reporters from across the GovExec media team with our own Nick Wakeman and Ross Wilkers.

Lauren Williams and Marcus Weisgerber of our partner publication Defense One jump in to share what they heard and wrote about at Sea-Air-Space, a Navy-focused trade show and one of a handful of the defense industry's largest conventions. The topics there represent key areas of interest for government contractors.

The group also goes over the impacts of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse and other banking sector difficulties on the industry. Also up for debate are the emerging cybersecurity rules and practices for companies and where L3Harris Technologies' acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne stands. The JADC2 networking construct also gets discussed and how the military is moving on its integration of commercial cloud computing.

Click here and go to page three to see the Defense Department's rendering of the Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control vision. It is exactly as complicated as we said it was.

BigBear's agenda for itself and the AI market Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

BigBear.ai spent much of 2022 undertaking a reset and restructuring effort, all with the goal of placing itself at the forefront of artificial intelligence adoption for its government and commercial customers.

This episode covers what BigBear has done and where it wants to go as told by chief executive Mandy Long and Tony Barrett, president and general manager of the federal segment.

BigBear is 15 months into its life as a publicly traded company, while Long joined in October 2022 as CEO. Long, Barrett and other BigBear leaders have since been at work explaining to investors the company's strategy and where it sees itself in the broader AI landscape.

Also on the agenda for their interview with our Ross Wilkers: distilling fact from fiction in the world of AI, how BigBear works to keep its federal and commercial segments in sync, and how making AI a greater reality for federal agencies requires multiple companies.

How Aeyon chose its investor and where it wants to go Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

Aeyon did not even call itself by that name when Sunny Singh joined the company as chief executive in the winter of 2018.

Fast forward to 2023 and what is now Aeyon is pushing to be a leading integrator of robotic process automation and other similar technologies for federal agencies.

In this episode, Singh joins the WT 360 conversation to explain why Aeyon decided to partner with the investment firm Enlightenment Capital in support of that ambition and what that backing has done for the company so far.

Singh also gives our Ross Wilkers a glimpse at how Aeyon blends its integration and consulting roles, plus what federal buyers are looking for with respect to RPA and other technologies under the umbrella of automation.

All about GSA's 'MAS-sive' contract consolidation Mar 07, 2023

Show notes

One of the federal government's largest contracts for commercial products and services is in a paradox as the General Services Administration is taking it through a complex consolidation process.

Noted GSA watcher and Schedule contract specialist Courtney Fairchild returns to WT 360 to provide an update on where the consolidation is now, next steps for companies to take and why they should view their actions as a series of business decisions versus purely administrative work.

Fairchild's role as CEO of the proposal consultancy Global Services Inc. means she is continuously peppered with questions on what companies should do next in this third phase of the Multiple Award Schedule consolidation. Consider this episode a collection of "Frequently Asked Questions," which our Ross Wilkers asks Fairchild, on pitfalls to avoid.

GSA's end goal for the consolidation is simplicity for agencies and companies alike. Simplicity should also drive contractors' actions in order to make the process straightforward for GSA employees, as Fairchild told our Ross Wilkers.

For more background and context, here are two articles written by Fairchild on the consolidation:

Top Four Ways to Avoid MAS Modification Rejections in 2023

MAS Contractors: Keep These Things in Mind for 2023

WT 360's Info Session: Leidos' CEO transition and troubles with two big contracts Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

Business matters lead the agenda for the latest of WT 360's Info Session episodes and in particular a chief executive transition at the government technology market's largest company.

Nick Wakeman and Ross Wilkers review the tenure of Leidos' retiring CEO Roger Krone that started with his initial appointment in 2014. Krone's first big move happened two years later through the merger with what was Lockheed Martin's IT services business, which laid the groundwork for what Leidos is today.

What kind of company is the incoming CEO Thomas Bell going to arrive at on May 3, and what background does he bring? Ross and Nick go over that element of the transition as well.

The WT team also attempts to get a handle on the endlessly troubled National Institutes of Health's CIO-SP4 IT contract vehicle, plus the Veterans Affairs Department's strong preference for speed regarding its T4NG2 vehicle, also for technology solutions.

The merger-and-acquisition portion of this episode goes over these transactions: IBM's acquisition of Octo, LinQuest's own run of buys and all the venture activity being driven by GovCon companies themselves.

Getting SBIR tech into the mainstream still has challenges Feb 22, 2023

Show notes

This Government Accountability Office decision illustrates the challenges small businesses face when moving a technology or solution they developed during the first two phases of a Small Business Innovation Research grant to production in phase three.

WT Editor Nick Wakeman sits down with attorney Stephen Bacon to discuss what and how GAO made its ruling, plus what it means for small businesses looking to move their SBIR solutions to the next level.

Phase one and two SBIR awards are common, but a phase three award is not guaranteed. The onus is on companies to educate and convince a potential government customer about their SBIR product and how it meets that agency's needs.

Info Session: New climate reporting rule, best-in-class contracts and workforce matters Feb 13, 2023

Show notes

Acquisition and procurement issues lead the agenda for this latest in WT 360's series of Info Session episodes that bring together reporters from across the GovExec media team with our own Nick Wakeman and Ross Wilkers.

Courtney Buble of Government Executive and Chris Riotta of FCW join to share their initial reactions to President Biden's mention of "Buy American" supply chain initiatives during his State of the Union address, and new regulations and legislation regarding climate reporting and cybersecurity compliance.

The panel also goes over the Defense Department's move to go its own way with respect to the use of best-in-class contracts that all federal agencies feel some pressure to lean on, plus the shared workforce problem across the entire public sector ecosystem highlighted by a key vacancy at the government's most senior level.

Jacobs' third wave is all about data and tech Feb 08, 2023

Show notes

Jacobs was born in 1947 as a company whose mission was to help clients carry out large-scale programs and that remains its focus.

In today's landscape, that means working with the customer base on how to tie data and technology into those efforts. For this episode of WT 360, Jacobs executive John Karabias explains what he calls the current "wave three" iteration of his company's strategy.

Jacobs' vice president of strategy for its new divergent solutions operating unit takes our Ross Wilkers through the company's gameplan unveiled in the spring of 2022 and how it came together. Divergent Solutions is a key leg of that, given its mandate is to develop and roll out digital offerings across all of Jacobs' end markets in government and commercial.

All throughout the conversation, Karabias harkens back to the company's origin story and shares how he sees much of what Joseph J. Jacobs started as still shaping the firm today.

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