WT 360: The market from all angles

Once passed and signed into law, the National Defense Authorization Act lays out the Pentagon's policy priorities and dictates how and where its appropriated funds are to be used.

The NDAA also functions as a roadmap for companies to shape their business strategies as explained in this episode featuring Luis Avila and Stephanie Smith, government contracting market analysts at RSM.

Avila and Smith take our Ross Wilkers through some key signposts of the legislation that they believe contractors should take particular note of. Procurement, the industry's pool of participants, supply chains, data rights and artificial...

The Defense Department has a new industrial cybersecurity strategy in place to help contractors improve their data and network security postures with a particular focus on small businesses.

DOD's emphasis on cyber through that strategy and beyond is an ongoing storyline that Lauren Williams stays on top of for Defense One, a sibling publication of Washington Technology.

For this episode, Lauren explains the vision and goals of that new strategy in conversation with our Ross Wilkers.

Lauren also provides a snapshot of what she found in the Army Applications Lab -- a technology...

It definitely feels like the tide is turning against noncompete agreements across the country: five states ban them outright, while many others have restrictions on when they can be enforced and on whom.

The Federal Trade Commission's effort to make these pacts illegal in the U.S. has a long runway ahead of it before becoming official, but is still a move that the government contracting ecosystem should take note of as it unfolds.

In this episode, attorneys Marlena Ewald and Grace Williams of the national security-focused law firm Fluet explain the bigger economic-wide picture...

The federal government has several large technology initiatives underway such as improving customer experience and leveraging artificial intelligence. Those issues are at the heart of what Natalie Alms writes about for NextGov/FCW, one of several sibling publications for Washington Technology.

She dives into those topics and more in this conversation with WT Editor Nick Wakeman. 

From her perch, Natalie has a unique perspective on the challenges agencies face in trying to modernize how they provide services to citizens. She explains that while AI holds great promise to improve how the government operates, there are als...

The final Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification rule is still months or maybe even a full year away, but the heart of rule will not change: standard 800-171 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In this episode, Fortinet's federal chief technology officer Felipe Fernandez tells Editor Nick Wakeman that companies should focus their efforts around the standard shaping the rule regardless of how CMMC evolves.

Companies have checklists and questionnaires available to them for use before they go through a third-party assessment. For those that prepare early, there may be an opportunity to separate thems...

Rebrandings are a constant in the government market and the company now known as Everfox is the newest example of that after its acquisition by one of the world's largest investment firms.

The cybersecurity business formerly known as Forcepoint Federal, and before that as Websense, now exclusively focuses on global government and critical infrastructure clients as a portfolio company of TPG. 

In this episode, Everfox's chief executive Sean Berg goes over some of the 700-employee company's investment priorities and the overall cyber landscape's current state of play.

Everfox has two decades of history b...

LMI was chartered during the Kennedy administration in 1961 as a provider of logistics management services and research to the federal government, work that remains core to the firm's vision and strategy.

That has not changed for LMI, but its change in 2022 from being a nonprofit to for-profit appears significant on the surface. In this episode, LMI's chief executive Doug Wagoner explains the rationale for making that shift and who the investors in the company are.

Of course, the conversation between Wagoner and our Ross Wilkers works its way toward what LMI plans to do with...

The presence of private equity firms continues to grow in the government market because as Zach Hester says in this conversation with Editor Nick Wakeman: “It just works." Plain and simple.

Most of the largest companies in the market have used acquisitions as a catalyst for organic growth. But according to Hester, the director of merger and acquisition strategy and deal generation at Bluestone Investment Partners, there are plenty of opportunities for the small and midsized players to be active in M&A as well.

Hester says the critical element a mission focus and using that...

SMX can trace its history back to 1995 and that timeline includes the name Smartronix, a marker represented in the current name that seeks to balance recognizing history with continuous evolution.

Digital transformation remains the core focal point of the new SMX's strategy and a main topic of this episode featuring chief executive Peter LaMontagne, who joined in 2020 as OceanSound Partners acquired the business.

LaMontagne also shared with our Ross Wilkers his view on what private equity investors like OceanSound do for the government market's middle tier and how SMX defines digital transformation for its strategy.<...

Multiple-award contract vehicles are where a majority of the government's buying activity seems to take place these days, but the "Rule of Two" that tells agencies how to work with small businesses did not apply there.

The White House has started to work on changing that through a Jan. 31 memo that tells agencies to use that golden rule of government contracting for multiple-award vehicles and their task order business.

What that means for small businesses is the focal point of this episode featuring Stephen Bacon, government contracts attorney at the law firm Rogers Joseph O'Donnell.<...