How and where to do business in the Navy: Part II

By Lloyd McCoy, DOD manager

The Marine Corps will utilize a major portion of Navy’s IT budget for everything from cyber and incident response tools to data visualization and analytics.Here is part II of our breakdown of the Navy’s IT focus areas through FY18 and the best ways the private sector can generate new leads. (If you missed part I, click here.)

The Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM) is the acquisition command for the U.S. Marine Corps. In my conversations with the service, a consistent refrain is that it wants to take capabilities that exist on a camp or garrison to the battlefield. So the Marine Corps is looking for technologies that are lightweight, flexible and that can be used at the lowest levels.

If your solution can be mounted or installed somehow on an unmanned, autonomous system, all the better since investments on unmanned systems is expected to rise in coming years. Opportunities for data analytics tools also abound given the increased emphasis this year on capabilities that can take ‘unclean’ data and, with analytics, help leaders make decisions.

The Marine Forces Cyber Command (MARFORCYBER), a component of the U.S. Cyber Command, is responsible for helping protect the nation’s critical infrastructure, specifically securing, operating and defending the Marine Corp’s network.

FY17 and FY18 priorities include flattening and hardening the network, consolidating domains, Windows 10 deployment and extending the Marine Corps network to the battlefield. The organization is helping develop a MEF Information Group where cyber warriors will embed with warfighting units, which is part of the Marine Corps doctrine of bringing as much capability to the lowest levels.

Additionally, as a member of U.S. Cyber Command, MARFORCYBER is responsible for bringing warfighting capability to the cyber domain, so think defensive and offensive cyber on an international scale. IDS/IPS and other monitoring and incident response tools, to name a few, are employed by MARFORCYBER. The Marines frequently talk about needing help training with a thinking enemy in mind, one armed with cyber weapons that threatens to even the playing field. Any help from industry on developing the tactics, techniques and procedures is needed here.

For more insight on IT priorities within the Armed Forces, reach out to immixGroup’s Market Intelligence team.