Edition number 31 of the Washington Technology Top 100 rankings is now live for all to use as a resource for more than just the numbers behind the federal market's largest technology and services contractors.

This latest episode of WT 360 has Nick and Ross start their talking through the companies and numbers that feature on the ranking, but particularly what they tell us about the government market's directions.

Here is *some* of what was on their agenda for this first in a two-episode series on the Top 100:

• The top quadrant's significant market share concentration
• How tech implementation and consulting are becoming more intertwined
• What Science Applications International Corp.'s new CEO wants the company (No. 11) to grow into

We will post the second half of the discussion next Monday morning. Same time, same place.

Dive into the rankings and more surrounding them by clicking the links below:

The 2024 Washington Technology Top 100

How we got our numbers

Our 2024 Top 100 reader's guide

Trends driving today's Top 100

Diversity gaps persist among the Top 100 C-suites

Initial public offerings in the government market are a rare event, so it was natural to focus much attention on Telos Corp.'s IPO in the fall of 2020 and where the company wanted to go next.

Telos' chief executive John Wood spoke to us shortly after the completion of that IPO and returns for this episode to provide an update on the security technology company's execution since then.

A significant aspect of Telos' journey as a public company can be characterized as a transition. As Wood describes to our Ross Wilkers, that also involves going toward a destination and not just an exit from something.

The overall security landscape for government and industry also features prominently in their discussion, both in the cyber realm and elsewhere.

PROJECT 38: Inside Telos' path to its IPO and what's next

Telos lays out plan for its year of transition

Where to now for Telos & its IPO proceeds?

Why Telos decided the time is now for its IPO

Already somewhat public, Telos' IPO further illuminates strategy

It is the law of the land that says federal agencies cannot simply discard any of the data they take in, no matter how much they already have and regardless of whether it is digital or physical.

Melissa Carson, vice president and general manager of Iron Mountain's government solutions business, starts out this episode with facts and figures to help quantify the volume challenge agencies have with one mind-boggling number on government forms to pay attention to.

She then tells our Ross Wilkers all about how the government, and companies like Iron Mountain, are connecting efforts to make data management easier with the overall customer experience agenda.

That work includes turning physical assets into the digital form, which is no easy feat, but becoming more so with the advent of generative artificial intelligence and other AI techniques. Having the right guardrails in place is key to making that a success though, according to Carson.

Dave Zolet, CEO of the newly-formed Astrion, has set an aggressive goal to double its annual revenue to around $1.5 billion in three years. That’s the needed size and scale to be a formidable mid-tier player today and fill a sweet spot in the market, Zolet says in this episode.

The 2,800-employee company was created through a pair of acquisitions by private equity firm Brightstar Capital. Zolet is busy creating a new company culture that he calls the "Astrion Way" -- a blend of technical skills with deep customer knowledge and focus. 

As Zolet tells our Editor Nick Wakeman, he wants Astrion to be a company that can look around the corner and see what's coming so it can bring solutions to customers that help them meet their missions faster and more efficiently.

Zolet shares the company strategy and future plans in this conversation.

This is episode three in our 2024 series on mergers and acquisitions across the government market.

BlueHalo as the market knows it today is around four years old with a strategy centered around space, cyber, directed energy and other key tech priority areas for the U.S. military and allied forces.

Now the defense technology integrator is joining forces with another like it that has the same private equity owner in Arlington Capital Partners. In this episode, BlueHalo's chief executive Jonathan Moneymaker explains the decision to combine with Eqlipse Technologies and the overall demand landscape that is behind the move.

"Transforming the Future of Global Defense" is the tagline all over BlueHalo's website and other promotional materials, and one Moneymaker spoke to us about in 2021 early on in the journey. Moneymaker returns now to tell our Ross Wilkers about what that transformation looks like here in 2024 and shares some first-hand anecdotes of how he has seen it.

This is episode two in our 2024 series on mergers and acquisitions across the government market.

BlueHalo to combine with Eqlipse Technologies

PROJECT 38: BlueHalo's strategy for transforming modern warfare

Private equity drives high transaction volume in 2023

2024 M&A Round Up

WT 360: All about Guidehouse's vision to be a 'next-generation consultancy'

Guidehouse was owned by one of the government market's most active private equity firms in Veritas Capital until its December sale to one of the investment world's cornerstone names.

In this episode, Guidehouse's chief executive Scott McIntyre describes the blueprint laid out by the company and its new owners Bain Capital with respect to what's next and how they plan to get there.

A bulk of that can be seen in how Guidehouse has adopted this approach for itself – "Building our next-generation consultancy." McIntyre explains what that means to our Ross Wilkers, plus how consulting is now much more than just providing clients advice, and the ways Guidehouse works with customers that are regulators and among the regulated.

This is episode one in our 2024 series on mergers and acquisitions across the government market.

Private equity drives high transaction volume in 2023

2024 M&A Round Up

Guidehouse to get a more global private equity owner

Google's cloud environment now has license to host secret and top secret data, which is a must-have for the company in its pursuit of large opportunities at defense and intelligence agencies especially.

Frank Konkel, editor-in-chief for GovExec's publications including us, had a front-row seat to that announcement and at Google's flagship cloud conference April 9-11 in Las Vegas.

In this episode, Frank joins our Nick Wakeman and Ross Wilkers to explain what Google's receipt of that key security authorization means for both the tech giant itself and the larger cloud computing landscape with respect to federal.

Google had much to share at its Cloud Next conference and Frank had much to talk about with key government and industry leaders there: conversations on all things cloud and artificial intelligence that he provides a glimpse into for Nick and Ross.

Google is now authorized to host classified data in the cloud

Google Public Sector ‘hitting our stride’ in government market, CEO says

Google centers public sector strategy on alliances with integrators

Google Bets Big on Government Business with New Division

Pentagon Awards $9B Cloud Contract to Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle

CIA makes awards for intelligence community's next massive cloud contract

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 intelligence are on the discussion agenda.

This fiscal year's NDAA comes out to around 3,100 pages, but as Avila and Smith explain: doing the homework on what is in the law helps contractors know their customer before it's time to pursue the contract.

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 incubator that the service branch stood up in 2019 to grow the network of startups it works with.

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 of the FTC's push to ban noncompetes and then take the conversation to GovCon.

Both attorneys told our Ross Wilkers that questions about what this already means and could mean for the employer-employee relationship are starting to come up, so they provide some answers to them here. They also provide some key signposts to watch as the FTC's effort progresses.

The Proposed Nationwide Ban on Non-Competition Agreements by the Federal Trade Commission

Will the FTC Finalize a Complete Ban on Noncompetes?

Noncompete agreements explained