WashingtonExec 2014 Market Outlook Series
As we turn the page on 2013, we look forward to a new year and new opportunities for innovation and growth in the government contracting community. This past year we experienced budget sequestration, a 16-day-long government shutdown, and a perpetually increasing focus on cyber security and healthcare IT.
WashingtonExec reached out to those most knowledgeable and experienced individuals in the federal contracting space. We asked executives in and around the beltway for insight regarding where they see the government contracting community headed in 2014. Topics discussed include M&A activity, cloud computing, healthcare IT, defense, mobility, and more.
Amit Puri is the President & CEO of Ingenicomm, Inc., an 8(a) small business that has rapidly grown in the satellite ground architecture industry:
It’s almost certain that the coming year will see yet more reductions in IT budgets. As agencies deal with decreased funding and the threat of even greater cuts in the future, they are increasingly trying to lower system lifecycle costs and reduce the costs associated with implementing changes and enhancements to IT systems in response to changing mission requirements.
At Ingenicomm, we’ve seen a lot of demand for collaborative IT solutions, in which our government customers wish to implement additional capabilities themselves, rather than having to go back to the original vendor for upgrades. This approach lets agencies leverage their existing technical staff to reduce total implementation costs and eliminate costly long-term dependencies on particular vendors. One of the most requested features for our CGS data processing software, for example, was the ability to transparently add in user-created software components. Our customers have used this feature to add numerous enhancements to the software framework we provided to meet their unique needs.
This is actually a good example of one of the growth strategies we’re employing for 2014. While it’s easy to conceptualize, executing it requires giving up more control to our customers and supporting them as they build their own unique interfaces. It’s challenging to do this successfully without doing a lot of planning and putting provisions for increased customer support in place within the company. Being nimble is the key to fostering a government-industry partnership like this.
