Digital Management Inc. believes it has done just fine on its own for the last 19 years. Founder and CEO Sunny Bajaj set a course that included being an early entrant to digital modernization and a mobile-first approach to solutions.

The company found success in both the commercial and public sector markets, which right now represent a 60-40 split of the business mix. They’ve also completed nine acquisitions over the last decade.

But Bajaj sees the federal market's appetite growing for the digital transformation that DMI can deliver. To strike while the iron is hot, he turned to the private equity group OceanSound Partners for an infusion of resources to fuel organic growth and support more acquisitions.

In this episode of Project 38, Bajaj explains to Editor Nick Wakeman why he picked a private equity partner over a strategic buyer and why that puts the company toward bigger and better things.

Infrastructure becoming increasingly digitized and federal agencies showing a willingness to try new ways to buy goods and services are two trends that Siemens' federal leader Tina Dolph lives and works with everyday. In this episode of Project 38, the CEO of Siemens Government Technologies explains to our Ross Wilkers how those topics are changing conversations with customers.

One line of discussion gaining increasing prominence that Dolph sheds light on is how cybersecurity is no longer just an information technology problem, but one that also poses a threat to operational technology.

Digitization of doing business kept things running during the pandemic. And Dolph also shares how she, the SGT team and their clients want to incorporate all they have learned from that experience.

In another of our Reporter Roundtables, Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman leads a discussion with FCW editors and reporters on today's hot topics and there have been plenty.

FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian talks about challenges the Veterans Affairs Department is facing with the rollout of the Cerner electronic health record.

Senior Editor and Defense Reporter Lauren Williams gives her take on CMMC 2.0 -- the Defense Department's reboot of its standard for contractors to certify their cybersecurity practices and posture.

Natalie Alms covers the federal workforce: she talks about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and some of the confusion around deadlines for government employees and contractors to be fully vaccinated.

Newer and faster phones on a specific band of spectrum that work based on certain protocols and standards: that is the most frequently-cited aspect of the ongoing 5G revolution.

But in this episode of Project 38, Viasat’s government business president Craig Miller says there is a much bigger picture that everyone should consider amid this transition to the next generation of mobile networks.

Miller explains to our Ross Wilkers how 5G also is a foundational architecture by which different networks can be stitched together into a single construct, all in the name of them working together. Interoperability of devices and networks already in the field is crucial to making the 5G revolution work for government agencies and help them move to the next generation of communications.

Fair warning: this discussion waves back-and-forth between happenings in government and commercial markets. That is by design however, given how the 5G technology standard and its predecessors have been developed and iterated over time.
This discussion of network interoperability surrounds all future government networking initiatives like the Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control construct, known as JADC2.

Every company has its own journey and in this episode, Sumeet Shrivastava shares with Editor Nick Wakeman the path Array Information Technologies followed from when he joined as CEO in 2008 to its just-completed sale CGI Federal.

Shrivastava describes the risks Array took such as focusing their efforts on a smaller part of the business as they positioned themselves for future growth. After an initial contraction, the company doubled in size to 300 employees and shifted from 85 percent of its revenue in small business set-aside work to 90 percent from full-and-open contracts. 

Then it came a time for Array to find a buyer. Shrivastava details that part of Array's journey and how they came to pick CGI Federal.

Every small business faces the inflection points that Array has faced, so this first-hand account offers lessons learned and plenty of advice as companies navigate today’s market. Shrivastava shares some of the important questions businesses should ask themselves as they move from one phase to the next.

Mergers, acquisitions and private equity are important engines for innovation in the defense market as retired Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle sees it.

For this episode of Project 38, the National Defense Industrial Association's CEO explains to our Nick Wakeman how the lure of a return on investment needs to be a consideration as the government regulates M&A activity.

Carlisle believes domestic investors should be attracted to fund young innovative companies, which after some development and nurturing are then sold to larger U.S. defense firms. That type of investment scenario thrives in the commercial world.

But today’s defense environment is still structured around a 1960s-era system for planning, programming, budgeting, and execution that Carlisle says needs to change.

Peraton’s transformation into a $7 billion-annual revenue business by integrating three big pieces -- itself, Northrop Grumman’s IT services business and Perspecta -- includes an applied research organization that can claim lineage to Bell Labs.

In this episode of Project 38, Peraton Labs President Petros Mouchtaris speaks with our Ross Wilkers about the three-decade history of the team he leads and how fits within the parent company.

Getting a head start on the federal government’s hardest problems is a paramount focus for Peraton Labs and this conversation goes over three big areas: cybersecurity, 5G and networks, and everything under the umbrella of automation including artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Mouchtaris also explains how Peraton Labs works on this existential idea: figuring out how with a little customization and refactoring, federal agencies can use many of the same technologies that the commercial sectors do.

Merger-and-acquisition activity in the government market has maintained a stunning pace this year with transactions getting done fast and furious. Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers review some of the deals that stand out and what they say about trends driving today's market.

This includes a discussion about the different investment patterns by public companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton as well as large privately-backed players like Guidehouse, with plenty of smaller acquirers in between.

The final phase of one of the federal government’s largest contract restructurings is on the horizon, but the consolidation of GSA's Multiple Award Schedule will take time and effort.

So ahead of an upcoming key deadline in mid-September, this episode of Project 38 goes over everything companies need to know at this juncture of the schedule consolidation with the help of Global Services President and CEO Courtney Fairchild.

All 24 Multiple Award Schedule contracts are becoming one as the General Services Administration pushes to simplify the program so industry and government alike have fewer burdens.

But phase three of this effort is the most complex and is more than just an administrative action, as noted GSA Schedule watcher Fairchild points out in this conversation with our Ross Wilkers. 

Fairchild and her company work with clients pursuing these very contracts, so Wilkers went over some of the most common questions she is asked about the consolidation, frequent misconceptions over what it means for companies and what it will portend for the future of government contracting.

Huntington Ingalls Industries just completed its largest-ever acquisition, the $1.65 billion deal for Alion Science & Technology, and is now at work integrating that big piece into the shipbuilder’s technical solutions segment.

This episode of Project 38 both functions as an update on that integration and a big-picture explanation of HII’s strategy for its technical solutions segment from its president Andy Green.

Much change and portfolio shaping has taken place since HII stood up the technical solutions segment in late 2016 to house its government services work, of which our Ross Wilkers has discussed with Green a few times since.

This latest conversation between Green and Wilkers includes a discussion on where HII looks to make sure its shipbuilding and solutions sides contribute to what the other is doing and the company at-large, plus some of the technical challenges they work on together and particularly in the emerging unmanned maritime domain.