CEO Insight Part Two: Silver Linings in the New Normal
Welcome to part two of my DLT State of the Union. You can read part one here.
With state and local IT budgets on the rebound and federal budgets shrinking, a “new normal” has emerged in the public sector IT industry. Federal agencies have been extremely diligent in allocating budgets this year which has created a silver lining in that it’s very clear exactly what needs to be accomplished in the last quarter of this fiscal year.
The focus is on consolidating procurement for renewals of current software licenses, while complying with critical government mandates and initiatives like Cloud First, FedRAMP, FDCC, and cybersecurity. Recent news involving government hacks affecting these technologies are almost a weekly occurrence and helps to keep IT spending a top priority.
Cybersecurity
Our infographic, The Reality of Cyberpain, offers a sobering view of the cybersecurity impact on agencies which will continue to grow exponentially for the foreseeable future.
A few years ago, we developed the GovDefenders platform to bring together our cybersecurity experts and those of our vendors. In April, we launched our first event: the GovDefenders Cybersecurity Online Event. It brought together experts from NetApp, Symantec, ForeScout, Red Hat, Dell Software, and Oracle to discuss trends, best practices, and the future of government cybersecurity. It was a huge success with over 600 registers from federal, state, and local agencies, as well as, universities and the private sector. You can now watch the webinars on-demand at our GovDefenders section.
Our Professional Services team also recently finished implementing an Oracle Directory Services Plus enterprise solution, helping the Department of Transportation toward Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management compliance. Read our case study - Federal Agency Modernizes Its Identity Management System - to learn more.
State and Local
While the federal market dominates media headlines, we also believe in the state and local markets, which I explained in a Washington Post interview when talking about our work with Oracle on Colorado’s health benefit exchange. Compared to federal, we’ve actually found more growth in these traditionally thought-of-as smaller areas. It takes a different kind of relationship at that level, but, and again, we have built those specialties into DLT. The key to our success in these markets will be staying as flexible as our customers need us to be.
Financing
While not usually an emphasis of mine when contemplating a state of the union address, this year is different. More and more of our customers are looking for “flexible financing” solutions. Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) solution offering is one way we are answering our customers’ concerns. Because of our partnerships with leading IT companies, we are able to consolidate multiple procurements and streamline the process for a variety of cloud computing (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS) and on premise solutions. We understand that agencies are facing a difficult road. They’re expected to maintain and increase their IT portfolios to reflect real needs, while working under constricting budgets. That’s why we’re happy to sit down and discuss real options that creatively work around the hurdles faced in procuring technology today. The Department of the Navy (DON) deal was one such process.
Federal Fiscal Year End
As always, we are preparing for the busy season. I think this year will be a little different. Due to legislation passed last year and earlier this year, agencies have had to examine their budgets early. The time they’ve put into allocating budget to the PPA level has created a silver lining in that it’s very clear exactly what needs to be accomplished in the last quarter. Therefore, instead of a hurried last month of the fiscal year, I expect the added flow of orders to begin this month and continue until the end of September.
Our customers look to us to provide them with holistic procurement options, allowing them to purchase multiple products across multiple vendors from a single source. We ensure that the IT they purchase is suited to their needs thanks to our in-house technology experts. And we guarantee fast, turnaround quotes, provided to them by our highly trained sales force, back office and contracts teams.
Conclusion
Our success, as in years past, is a credit to our staff, our solutions, and our relationships. As the industry evolves, these three assets ensure we maintain our momentum coming into the second half of 2013. There will be many long nights, and quite a few early mornings. But we’ll be there for our customers – coffee in hand.
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In the ever changing technology landscape, IT companies are constantly perfecting their products to keep up. We’re proud to be a partner of key IT providers to the government who continue to be relevant assets by consistently improving their offerings.
Catch up on a few of the recent product updates from our partners:
DLT Solutions