WT 360: The market from all angles

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New Maximus Federal leader forges the path forward Jan 05, 2022

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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.

Why listening, mentorship and trust drive GDIT's success Dec 15, 2021

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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.

Amy Gilliland on how people will drive GDIT's future Dec 08, 2021

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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.

As Justice Department scrutiny looms, here's a roadmap for contractors to get their cyber houses in order Dec 06, 2021

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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.

CGI Federal's Stephanie Mango leads with a belief that everything can be better Nov 30, 2021

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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.

What to do when operational tech is a cyber target too Nov 22, 2021

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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.

Private equity boost fuels DMI's next phase of growth Nov 17, 2021

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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.

Digital & agile go beyond just the tech Nov 10, 2021

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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.

Troubles at VA, CMMC reboot, Covid mandates drive the news Nov 08, 2021

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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.

Going beyond just spectrum when talking 5G Oct 27, 2021

Show notes

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.

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