Government agencies face a strategic challenge these days. In a nutshell: Money isn’t flowing smoothly.
“There are budget constraints and ongoing challenges with continuing resolutions,” said Brian Baney. Agencies need those funds to operate effectively, “and a lot of that is not within their control. The question becomes: How to address the impact of these challenges? How do you manage at the tactical level?”
As lead vice president for defense at Aeyon, Baney is helping Defense Department organizations meet mission effectively, even in the face of such complexity.
“We go beyond providing support services, to help them realize efficiencies,” he said.
To that end, Aeyon puts a heavy emphasis on data and automation, twin pillars defense agencies need to ensure operational impact.
“We enable them to get access to the data they need to gain insights into their programs, organizations, and their processes,” Baney said. “We obtain information that empowers them to make informed decisions as well as measure outcomes.”
Automation works in tandem with data to drive those outcomes.
“You need to be more efficient with your resources and your time,” Baney said. “How do you take these limited resources and focus more on the mission?” Automation helps to answer that call, surfacing insights and operationalizing data with less human effort required.
This approach is especially valuable in the defense community, “where every service has its own system, and even agencies within DOD have their own systems,” Baney said. “You need to work across organizations to manage data, and get to clean data and information that leadership can use. We’ve been very successful in enabling that.”
DOD needs that kind of help in numerous ways, large and small. From a business development perspective, Baney said his approach is to start with small wins and scale, rather than tackling projects of unwieldy scope and size.
“We don’t always push the big, enterprise-wide transformational efforts, because in an organization like the federal government, there are significant variables to manage,” he said. “Instead, we seek an almost grassroots approach, where you take some of our solutions around data and automation, and you apply them at a more tactical level, whether it’s a weapons program or a headquarters organization. Most importantly, it allows Aeyon to focus on and enable adoption.”
The goal is to succeed small and build a customer base, “and then you can translate that to similar organizations,” Baney said. Within DOD, “all these organizations have the same overarching processes.”
When Aeyon succeeds on a project with the Army or Navy, “then we can translate that success to the other services, simply because they’re executing the same processes and they have the same challenges,” he said. “In many cases, because we’re already doing it, there is a contract available.”
As an added benefit, tackling smaller-scale projects enables the Aeyon team to laser-focus its efforts.
“We can really get at some of our customer challenges and provide solutions ⏤ getting them the information they need or automating some of their processes ⏤ so that they’re spending more time actually doing the important work,” he said.
It then becomes almost natural to expand those solutions into other areas.
“It’s easy to scale at that point,” Baney said. “You have the blueprint, you have some of the solutions, and you should be able to apply that in other organizations to deliver there as well.”
As he pursues these efforts, Baney describes the noise in the marketplace as the biggest challenge.
“There are many, many companies in this space, and they all offer expertise and capabilities,” he said.
How to differentiate?
Aeyon looks to set itself apart through its Centers of Excellence, internal organizations that focus on specific solutions. And to prove the value of that approach, Aeyon leadership uses its CoE expertise to drive internal improvements.
Aeyon uses the CoEs to elevate its own business processes, “and we can ultimately bring those solutions back to our customer,” Baney said.
Baney said he’s personally pleased to be supporting the defense agencies. He started his career in the Department of Homeland Security before moving into the GovCon world, so he understands how much government relies on vendors to support the mission.
“When I was on the government side as a junior analyst, I always appreciated what the GovCon community did, because they were helping me,” he said. Today, “my customer is not necessarily the person sitting in the office: It’s the soldier in the field. That’s why I want to get up every day and do what I do.”