In May 2015 Tom Anderson made the move to SAIC as Vice President of Health Services. Previous COO of STG, Inc. and CEO and Founder of Envision IT, LLC, a management consulting firm, Anderson plans to focus on building and executing SAIC’s successful health services business in the public sector.
“One of the things that attracted me to SAIC is the fact that they are expanding the business in key market areas to include health services,” said Anderson. “Given my background in previously leading organizations to include IT health organizations and health sciences organizations, it made sense for me to learn more about that and what the company was up to in those specific areas. I really liked the fact that SAIC has a strong brand name and is widely recognized as a market leader.”
With a new company culture, SAIC focuses on the customer mission and creativity and empowers their employees to deliver new, innovative ideas. As a corporation, SAIC has identified six significant growth areas called Enterprise Market Initiatives (EMIs), and in his new role Anderson specifically aims to advance growth in health services across the SAIC.
Anderson plans to continue SAIC’s successful history of delivering technology and science solutions to the health services public sector by working with other leaders, including state and local defense organizations, and civilian organizations.
Unlike the arguably current flat federal market, health services is a unique market with tremendous expansion opportunities and facets yet to be explored.
“Health Services is an area that I think companies will focus on because there is that growth opportunity.”
“In considering the broad range of capabilities that SAIC brings to this market, it makes really good sense for us to focus on health services. I call it health services because it really is a combination of health IT and health science.”
Before the Government can realize the best available solutions, there is a lot of change and understanding that needs to occur. Current market customers are looking for innovative and creative health solutions that according to Anderson cannot be met with the industry’s current use of the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection process.
“We are continuing to see a focus on cost savings initiatives across the government market,” Anderson said. “I think there is also the realization that LPTA is not realistic. LPTA is something that really supports the commoditization of IT services which is never a good thing. We’re beginning to see increased movement toward some form of best value evaluations.”
As Vice President of Health Services, Anderson wants to maximize the growth opportunity in this space.
“In addition to health services the company is looking at enhancing cyber, integrated security systems, IT as a service, platform integration and training. My role is associated with health services and I’m here specifically to drive meaningful growth across our business enterprise as it relates to health.”
Anderson went on to discuss integrating SAIC’s high-end cyber and big data analytic capabilities with its new health IT services offerings.
“What we are planning to do in the short term is complete the business strategy and begin the execution of the plan. We will leverage many areas of technical and engineering capabilities associated with SAIC’s service-line portfolio. We are market leaders in areas such as data analytics and cyber – just two that come to mind that I think make really good sense for us to focus on. There are many others obviously but those two are really good. I will leverage these to the maximum extent possible and make those things available to the customers. We hear repeatedly that customers are looking for thought leadership in those areas. At the CMS SPARC Industry Day, the Government talked about the importance of cyber solutions. SAIC is a company with significant technical depth. We have a long-standing background supporting public sector health and we continue to build upon that.”
On a more personal note, we ended our interview with asking Anderson what he recommends to the younger associates in the government contracting space read this summer in order to increase their business acumen.
“From a business planning perspective – there are several great business books out there. One that I have used on several occasions is Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim. The book addresses the highly competitive nature of some business environments and provides insight to how a leadership team achieves differentiation in the market. Blue Ocean Strategy is all about a set of processes to create differentiation in the market. I think it’s a great resource for someone who is just entering the business world or for leaders of established companies.”