WT 360: The market from all angles

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How innovation theater can affect change across the public sector Oct 11, 2022

Show notes

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.

The metaverse has already arrived, but more is on the way Oct 04, 2022

Show notes

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.

Volume is not all there is to the data challenge Sep 29, 2022

Show notes

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.

A fiscal-year end health check on the market Sep 19, 2022

Show notes

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.

The government's customer experience push is a business effort too Aug 30, 2022

Show notes

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.

An insider's view on how Peraton put three big pieces together Aug 09, 2022

Show notes

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.

Inside Leidos' business development approach Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

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 signaling intent with $100M ventures fund Jul 25, 2022

Show notes

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.

Batsakis and Speigel explain their 'low-code' middle market strategy Jul 20, 2022

Show notes

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.

Inside Amentum's path forward after rapid expansion Jul 13, 2022

Show notes

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.

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