Larry Prior, CEO, CSRA
Increased scale and regional ties within Northern Virginia’s government technology community have helped CSRA better address customer demands since last year’s merger between CSC and SRA International, according to CSRA President and CEO Larry Prior.
Speaking at the April 7 Northern Virginia Technology Council’s Titan Breakfast, Prior said benefits of scale go beyond the financial incentives such as improving cost structure and defending margins. The synergistic benefits of scale can boost profitability and please shareholders, but they also help CSRA reinvest in business development and next-generation technology.
The merger also means increased clout with tech partners like Cisco, Brocade, Oracle and SAP, as well as a bigger tech team that allows for faster response to customer demands, Prior said.
“I love the bench of technology talent,” he said. “I love having a thousand developers, so that if we need to put a hundred Java folks on a project overnight, we have the wherewithal to do that.”
Besides gaining from increased scale on a company level, CSRA also benefits from “scale by region,” taking advantage of partnerships with other experienced technology companies within the Northern Virginia region.
“Together, we’re smarter, all of us, than any one of us,” Prior said. “Together, we’re stronger than any one company…. I think the model for tomorrow is collaboration and teamwork.”
Prior compared the Northern Virginia business community to Silicon Valley in the 1990s, saying the foundation of investment around the federal government generates cash flow and shared knowledge that greatly benefit technology companies in the area. At the same time, however, he cautioned that companies seeking to sell IT to the federal government need to take advantage of those resources to keep up with the speed of technology.
“It’s real, it’s now, it’s accelerating, and I would argue that if you’re not thinking about next-generation IT, the movement to the cloud, then you’re roadkill, and your market is going to overwhelm you,” Prior said.
You can watch video of Prior’s remarks below.
