WashingtonExec 2015 Market Outlook Series
We look forward to a new year and new opportunities for innovation and growth in the government contracting community. This past year, we experienced an increased emphasis on cybersecurity, the government’s procurement process and a perpetual focus on doing more with less.
WashingtonExec reached out to those most knowledgeable and experienced 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 2015. Topics discussed include M&A activity, cloud computing, privacy issues, data collection, healthcare IT, defense and more.
Intuitive.IT CEO Gil Guarino believes success will require excellence in execution and innovation in order to provide value and the lowest cost bid content.
Gil Guarino: With Sequester still on the table for 2015, federal IT budgets will remain under pressure. As such, LPTA procurements whether stated or implied, will dominate acquisition decisions, not always in the government’s best interests. Contractors will be challenged to grow profitability without aggressively managing bid rates, providing differentiated offerings or driving innovation into bids to optimize/reduce the costs of their solutions and services. Industry will continue to consolidate as smaller firms look to realize or salvage their value and larger firms acquire new capabilities and market presence to sustain growth.
The recent hack of Sony and the numerous publicized and unpublicized cyberattacks in both government and industry underscore the imperative for real collaboration to further address cyber issues. In cloud computing, while there is common mindshare on the “why” and “what,” the challenges surround the “how.” Planning and executing a transition to cloud is a two-sided effort that can best be accomplished with collaboration.
Looking ahead, we’ll see continued growth in mobile computing with the private sector continuing to lead. Government agencies that don’t continue to evolve policy to allow for innovation will fall behind. At some point, “Bring Your Own Device” and the “Virtual Office” will become necessary new business models. Even more significant, the “Internet of Things” — advanced connectivity of devices, systems, services — and the vast amount of resulting data will accelerate and challenge our thinking and capabilities around mobile, cloud and Big Data, and security. The struggle between efficiency versus intrusion/privacy will never be greater and must be addressed to realize the full potential of these capabilities. No area brings this to light more than “connected health” as patients and clinicians leverage evolving technologies to enhance and make more efficient healthcare delivery and increase patient health self-management.
Success in the next 2-3 years will require excellence in execution and innovation in a company’s core solutions/services in order to provide value and the lowest cost bid content, both essential for winning in an environment of LPTA.
Related: Gil Guarino Named CEO of Intuitive.IT
