The finalists for this year’s Greater Washington Government Contractor Awards were announced in September and WashingtonExec is bringing you its annual series with the nominees.
The winners will be unveiled on November 7th at The Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner by the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce (FCCC), the Professional Services Council (PSC) and Washington Technology magazine. With over 900 business and public sector leaders attending the event, our series will keep you up-to-date about all the finalists for this year–who they are, what they do, and why they are worthy of winning.
Today’s interview is with Octo Consulting Group, Inc. (Octo). Octo is nominated for “Contractor of the Year” in the $25 – $75 million category and the company’s CEO, Mehul Sanghani, is nominated for “Executive of the Year” in the same category. Octo Consulting won the 2012 GovCon Awards in the “Contractor of the Year”, less than $25 million category.
WashingtonExec: As a leader in the community, how have you approached the government shutdown? What did you learn from the last government shutdown?
Octo: Overall, the biggest changes that have occurred have been the slow and steady erosion of trust between the government and the contracting community. The morale on both sides of the aisle is at an all time low. However, the challenges that exist require greater collaboration, innovation and dialogue between government and industry and we are hopeful these realities will spark a renewed sense of trust and optimism. There needs to be a sea change of greater investment in employees and culture. We took a very proactive stance towards communication with our employees during the shutdown, and had a small subset of our employees go on non-voluntary PTO. During that time, we had a number of our employees offer to donate PTO to those folks that were forced to take PTO during the shutdown. I think that speaks to the character of the firm’s employees and the culture we’ve worked hard to cultivate.
“Contractors that emphasize innovation, collaboration and creativity will be poised to capitalize, and given our core competencies in areas like agile software development and data visualization.”
WashingtonExec: What is your 2014 market outlook for the federal contracting community? Where are you seeing areas for growth?
Octo: We understand that uncertainty and tighter budgets are here to stay. This new norm means that government agencies are seeking quicker and more cost-effective results in shorter timeframes. Lapses in government appropriations, the debt ceiling and continued pricing pressures force contractors to approach engagements creatively by adapting to agency needs and working within the confines of agency environments. There are challenges that come with this new norm. However, contractors that emphasize innovation, collaboration and creativity will be poised to capitalize, and given our core competencies in areas like agile software development and data visualization – we feel very good about our positioning for 2014 and beyond.
WashingtonExec: How does your company identify and then cultivate high-potential employees to become leaders in your organization?
Octo: We employ talented, intelligent and thoughtful consultants and empower them to do whatever it takes to meet our clients’ missions. Our employees and culture is the foundation of Octo’s success. We take great pains to identify individuals who will fit into our unique culture and then give them the tools needed to grow both personally and professionally. We are a transparent organization and compensate our employees fairly for their successes. We give opportunities for employees at all levels to be leaders in some way — may it be a customer engagement, management team or at the executive level. We’re continuously cultivating leadership qualities throughout the organization. This constant nurturing and empowerment of our employees defines our culture and success.
“We’ve experienced significant growth over the past year, which forced us to look at key components of what had made us successful thus far and identify our path to reach the next level of success.”
WashingtonExec: How does your organization engage effectively with all levels of employees, on and off site?
Octo: At Octo, we make sure that all of our employees have the same sense of culture both on- and off-site. Our consultants are Octo employees first, even if they are on-site full-time. They are ambassadors of our brand and embody our values, traditions and expectations. We communicate via an internal collaboration portal, hold monthly hands-on meetings, ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to cycle back into headquarters and engage with other employees. We also have 2 assigned firm Ombudsman who collect non-attributional feedback from employees across the firm year round to ensure leadership is attuned to employee concerns. This family outlook was apparent during the shutdown when many other contractors furloughed non-essential on-site government consultants. We brought everyone back into the office, placed them on temporary assignments and ensured that no one was forced to take PTO or furloughed. We also host regular social events, golf outings, company picnics and other activities. I think the social fabric of our firm, the camaraderie that exists that isn’t forced, is a major strength for us.
WashingtonExec: What trends are you seeing that are important to your customers?
Octo: We believe that efficiency is the new innovation and agile is more than a development process. Agencies need results that enable their mission quickly and require creative solutions to complex problems. We see these trends recurring across the government landscape whether it is a civilian, defense or intelligence agency. These are tenets we live by allowing us to deliver results that improve mission effectiveness. We were recently recognized as a finalist for the NVTC Innovator Awards in the Agile Systems Development category – a recognition of the uniqueness of our approach and the value that customers are placing on this need for both efficiency and innovation.
WashingtonExec: What is your company’s biggest accomplishment in the last 12-18 months?
Octo: We’ve experienced significant growth over the past year, which forced us to look at key components of what had made us successful thus far and identify our path to reach the next level of success. We identified those core areas and made significant organizational and structural changes to ensure our continued success and growth without compromising our values and identity. We brought in new leadership, which also inserted new thinking and outlooks. We reorganized key vertical segments to be more mission focused and key horizontal segments that allowed us to serve as both a technology and management consulting provider. All of this growth and realignment amounted to an overall significant cultural change, but by approaching it strategically and organically, we were able to preserve our unique culture that defines Octo.
WashingtonExec: How is your company involved in the community? (Corporate citizenship).
Octo: We are involved in various levels of community based and socially conscious. Our most recent push is one where we are allowing all our employees time off to support community service initiatives. Next week our employees will be supporting the District of Columbia’s Ward 7 First Book Drive. Ward 7 represents the DC ward with the lowest literacy rate by a wide margin. Children and adults with low literacy skills have poor educational, employment, and health prospects later in life. We feel a great sense of belonging in our community and view the greater DC region as teeming with prospect and opportunity. We are partnering with DC non-profit First Book to ensure that every student in Ward 7 gets a brand new book and access to improved reading opportunities. We’ve invested both dollars to support this initiative as a sponsor, but more importantly, we’ll have 60 of our consultants on hand to devote time on the ground next week to ensure this initiative is a success.
