BETH FLESHMAN, ALION AND GUY TORRES, SALIENT, ASSUME LEADERSHIP OF THE GTSC LION’S DEN

Industry leaders will continue to focus on growth for midtier government contractors

This month’s profile with Matt Warren, Managing Director, Accenture Federal Services.  Matt leads Accenture’s IT and digital services portfolio serving the Department of Homeland Security, focused on developing targeted solutions to DHS’ mission-critical IT challenges.  Matt was President of the Justice & Homeland Security Sector at Agilex Technologies since 2008, where he built a multimillion dollar business that continues to serve customers such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), and Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Agilex was acquired by Accenture Federal Services in February 2015.  Matt is a veteran of sales within the Federal Government since 1996 with a strong focus on the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice. Matt previously worked at Oracle where he helped start and lead the DHS sales team as one of the top performing accounts in Federal. Matt finished his almost 11 year career at Oracle managing about one third of Federal Civilian before joining Agilex.

What differentiates Agilex from other companies in our market? To what do you attribute your impressive growth?

Matt: From the very beginning, we wanted to solve – not just work on – our clients’ most mission-critical IT challenges. As a result, we partner closely with them to develop targeted solutions to their unique requirements. We also respect the urgency that they operate under, as our agile approach is designed to deliver rapid and demonstrable value. This model has established us increasingly as our clients’ go-to partner for can’t-fail projects.

As part of Accenture Federal Services (AFS), we will maintain and actually extend this focus. Both companies share a long-term commitment to delivering superior customer value by ‘getting to done’ – delivering our solutions on time and on-budget as promised.

AFS is renowned for taking on the government’s biggest and most complex challenges. With their additional resources, we can scale dramatically the impact that we are having on our clients’ performance. It’s only been a short time, but I can’t wait to bring our two teams together as we have all-stars on both sides.

GTSC:  What do you find to be the greatest challenge to moving things forward, or being “agile”?

Matt:  Strategy is important but execution is where you see the results. For Agilex, our agile approach is a team effort requiring focus, tenacity and a tireless pursuit of excellence. Fortunately, we have a team that’s both committed and smart.

We have also been asked by a number of clients to support their agile adoption as well. Based on their success, three factors jump out as being critical to sustainable adoption. First, it takes leaders in government that are committed to change for the benefit of the mission and are willing to personally invest themselves in overcoming obstacles. Second, your contractors must be skilled and aligned to deliver value and performance under these new benchmarks. Finally, you need contract vehicles that can drive accountability, which means they need to be flexible enough to quickly award and reassign task orders as needed.

GTSC:  Do you see areas of growth in 2015? If so, where?

Matt:  Over the past eight years, we have established a very enviable reputation in government. Based on this track record, 2015 can be an incredible year for us.

First, the mindset of the government buyer is changing rapidly. No longer are they acquiring resources and hoping for the best. Instead, they are looking to partner with companies that engage themselves in actually solving the problem at hand. Furthermore, they’ve become more committed to agile approaches as a means for ensuring performance and maintaining accountability.

Second, the emerging technologies that we’ve championed since day one are entering the mainstream in government. These areas include mobile, cloud, Big Data analytics, agile and DevOps. Our track record in government for these technologies is unsurpassed.

Finally, as part of Accenture Federal Services, we now have the resources and scale needed to take on our clients’ biggest challenges. As just one example, we can now draw upon advances in border security globally as part of the Accenture family.

GTSC:  As part of Accenture, will you continue to support GTSC?

Absolutely. More than a small business group, we’ve always viewed GTSC as a champion for performance-based contracting and those companies that want to make a difference and deliver real value. Our commitment here hasn’t changed.

As we go forward, I expect GTSC to be a great forum for building strategic partnerships with the companies that are really having an impact within DHS. By capitalizing on the unique strengths of a variety of companies, we can maximize our long-term impact.

“The federal government has made a tremendous commitment to small business – setting aside numerous contracts to support their launch and growth. Assuring that these competent, successful businesses continue to provide great service to their government clients leverages this investment and reaps the return of more mature companies,” said Beth Fleshman, Vice President, Alion and Chair of the Lion’s Den.

GTSC’s Lion’s Den, comprised of companies between $15 million and $1 billion in revenue, focuses on policies and activities to support the growth of companies that have grown out of, or are about to grow out of, their North American Industry Classification System codes (NAICS). The campaign, launched with an info-graphic on the value proposition of mid-tier firms, will work with the public and private sector to understand why there should be a viable path for these companies and how to achieve it. Learn more about the campaign here.

“The lack of mid-tier opportunities leaves matriculating small businesses with nothing to bid on. Often, they can’t even bid on continuation of their current contracts despite exceptional performance.  While change isn’t always bad, the government stands to lose substantial investment in providers with proven business acumen and expertise meeting mission needs,” said Dianna Francois, Vice President, WBB Inc.

Members of the Lion’s Den include Alion, Barbaricum, Blacktsone Technology Group, BlueWater Federal, CENTRA Technology, E3 Federal, Eagle Ray, GAP SI, Grant Thornton, Integrity One Partners, Micropact, Miracle Systems, Morgan Franklin, NCI, Salient, SE Solutions, and WBB.

What can you do?

We invite you to join us to be part of the solution.

• Share our infographic with colleagues in the public and private sectors.

• Schedule a mid-tier presentation for your office.

• Join the Lion’s Den.

• Share our media updates, twitter posts, and linkedin updates using #midtier
  and #midtiergovcon

• Join the GTSC Linkedin group and the Lion’s Den subgroup.

• Refer interested government officials to the Lion’s Den to set up a presentation.

  Contact us with questions or comments ktanasichuk@gtscoalition.com.

Ronald Gallihugh, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Transportation Security Administration and his procurement team, were recognized as Federal Small Business Champions of the Year; Pherson Associates for Small Business Member of the Year; Agilex as Mid-tier Member of the Year; Harris as Mentor of the Year; Sara Schroerlucke, Program Manager in Customs & Border Protection, as Federal Most Valuable Player; Michelle Mrdeza, Senior Advisor to Cornerstone Government Affairs and founding Strategic Partner of GTSC as Strategic Advisor of the Year; Government Contracting Weekly as Strategic Partner of the Year; and Jim Williams, co-founder of Schambach & Williams as the 2014 Market Maven.

Read the full release here.

The Government Technology & Services Coalition and Government Contracting Weekly partnered to recognize exceptional mentors in the government contracting community.

 The awards program recognizes and salutes government contractors for their leadership and concrete actions in assisting small government contracting firms through mentoring, training, inspiration, teaming and cooperation.  The awards recognize that mentoring is critical to the contracting community.  Large firms that mentor small companies play a critical role in saving their Federal clients money and time, commit to putting action behind the mantra of bringing “innovation and creativity” to the Federal mission and bring a higher level of professionalism to the contracting community.

Honoring our Federal Small Business Titans:  

Frank Barros 

Program Analyst, Science & Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Sandra Broadnax 

Elissa Sobolewski 

Federal Small Business Titan of the YEAR: 

Kevin Boshears
 Director, Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization, U.S. Department of Homeland Security 

KEYNOTE SPEAKER ANNOUNCED FOR MATCHMAKING SESSION

Les Rose is the Corporate Vice President & President of L3 National Security Solutions group. He also serves as the co-chair of the GTSC Mentor Forum. L-3 NSS’ six operating units deliver full-spectrum cyber operations, enterprise and mission information technology, intelligence operations support and operational infrastructure solutions. Mr. Rose’s career has spanned over 40 years of management and engineering. Upon completing a successful 20-year career as an officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and as an Army pilot, Mr. Rose joined Delta Research Corporation, an L-3 legacy company in 1990. He was promoted to president of Delta Research, and through a series of acquisitions and promotions became president of L-3 STRATIS one of the largest division of the global defense leader. Today Mr. Rose serves as president of both L-3 STRATIS and L-3 NSS. Mr. Rose holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Are you a small business interested in teaming partners?  Do you work on:

• information technology
• identity management
• configuration management
• help desk.call center support
• warfighter support services
• C4ISR experience
• Maritime/Port security operations services
• Wireless Network technical support
• Health IT
• information security/information assurance
• IA support for validation testing
• logistics support
• networks services
• modeling and simulation
• training courseware capabilities
• Intelligence Community IT services
• or other services?

Join us for an afternoon of new contacts, teaming and insight into new market areas.

TENTATIVE AGENDA – GTSC Small Business Mega-Matchmaking & The Mentor Awards

1:00 pm  Introduction

1:15 – 4:00 pm  Matchmaking with GTSC Mentors and other large companies

4:30 pm  Small Business Government Panel

5:30 pm  The Mentor Awards program and reception

Download the Brochure.

]]> https://gt.gtscoalition.com/pending-membership/ Thu, 27 Jun 2013 07:00:40 +0000 https://www.gtscoalition.com/?p=4220 Celebrate Small Business Week with GTSC’s Pending Membership!