WashingtonExec recently interviewed the President and COO of IMC, Louis Matrone. We asked Matrone where IMC competes best in the government contracting space and how it plans on maintaining growth and excellence if large federal spending cuts do occur. Matrone’s answer? IMC has loyal customers and a diverse portfolio. WashingtonExec also asked Matrone his thoughts on former Federal CIO Vivek Kundra calling large IT contractors “cartel’s” in a New York Times opinion piece. IMC’s community nonprofit involvement as well as how the company recruits and maintains top talent were also topics of discussion.
WashningtonExec: How did you get started in the government contracting business?
Louis Matrone: I went to work for EDS when I graduated from college and it was shortly after starting my career there that I realized my passion was working with our clients on the front lines. My first assignment was working on the Alabama Medicaid Program where EDS was installing and managing a new system. Over the years I worked on several other state and local government programs throughout the Country and subsequently became involved in supporting Federal Government Programs with EDS until I joined IMC in June 2000.
WashingtonExec: What is something IMC does better than the rest of the competition? How is IMC able to consistently stay on top?
Louis Matrone: Many of our clients have been with us for over 5 years, some 10-15 years. And, as always, in order to stay competitive in this economy, IMC believes in true innovation. We have always taken great pride in hiring the best and brightest employees and in turn, we are able to provide intelligent solutions that meet our customer’s business needs.
Our niche is in managing unstructured information – emails, web content, digitized paper etc. – anything that does not fit into rows and columns. We are known for applying technology to address complex business processes and improve efficiency in records management, information retrieval, business analytics and so forth. We have developed methodologies to decompose our client’s business needs and our subject matter experts work together with our clients to provide customized and off-the-shelf IT business solutions.
In addition, IMC established a subsidiary in Pune, India, back in the mid-90’s which provides our clients with a dual-shore option. Several of our clients in the commercial sector use this to keep their product development and maintenance costs down while much of the higher value added design and development is conducted stateside in the USA.
WashingtonExec: What are some current projects that you are working on? Do you see IMC’s business plan changing with looming federal spending cuts?
Louise Matrone: IMC serves a diverse base of clients that includes agencies such as DOD, DHS, FDA, NIH,NIDA, VA, and state and local government agencies. Our commercial customers include large financial institutions – credit card companies and banks, hospital systems, and many others. Our projects include development of complex business solutions, integration of commercial off-the-shelf software products such as Kofax, FileNET, SharePoint, OpenText, etc. We are also working on some very interesting projects for Data Center Consolidation – we are focused on ‘content aggregation, cleaning, de-duplication’ etc.- we call this removing the ‘ROT’ – redundant, obsolete and trivial information.
Continuing resolutions and cutbacks in federal spending have affected the federal services community across the board. IMC is no exception. However, our customers have been with us for a long period and much of the work we do is of a mission-critical nature and hence we have not felt as much of an impact as we anticipated. Also, our commercial business has picked up significantly from the depths of the 2008/09 recession and we are seeing a lot of activity…
WashingtonExec: Did you read Vivek Kundra’s recent New York Times opinion column regarding government contracting, cloud computing and the “IT Cartel“? What is your opinion?
Louis Matrone: Vivek’s 25-point plan for government IT was a bold step in nudging government agencies toward adoption of newer technologies, solution platforms – such as the cloud – and to bring about more transparency and accountability to federal IT projects. And, in regards specifically to the cloud, the United States has an incredible leadership opportunity in Cloud innovation and adoption. IMC executives have even recently participated in a commission creating a roadmap for US Cloud Computing led by salesforce.com Chairman and CEO, Marc Benioff and the TechAmerica Foundation. This project was a brilliant private-public partnership and explored a number of options in adopting new technologies and services and adopting a cloud-strategy.
Vivek’s opinion in the New York Times was perhaps a reflection of his personal tenure at OMB and some of the frustrations he experienced in his role as a ‘change agent’. The Federal Government is a huge juggernaut with very diverse requirements and changing demands. I am sure it is not an easy job to rationalize the way technology is deployed or how agencies might comply with changing demands placed on them by a wavering Congress or to comply with the many rules and regulations etc. I believe the IT services community is doing an excellent job of serving the government client and Vivek was a champion for promoting an active dialog between government and the contracting community.
WashingtonExec: I read that you are on a couple regional committees and boards, why do you think community and outside project involvement is important?
Louis Matrone: I’ve always believed in giving back to your community, it was how I was raised. And, I am lucky to be at IMC who is as generous in their time and commitment to community. It is incredibly important to be a leader, to set an example and encourage others to do so. IMC has ‘adopted’ local elementary schools, participated in raising money for United Way, the Red Cross and many other civic activities. Our employees appreciate such community giving and I believe this to be an important aspect of being a good corporate citizen.