IT modernization | Government Sales Insider

Omnibus signed into law–now what?

March 27, 2018 by Chris Wiedemann Leave a comment

federal budget, fiscal year, procurement By Chris Wiedemann, consultant

Despite some last-minute dramatics, President Trump signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus appropriations bill into law last Friday, fully funding the government for the rest of fiscal year 2018.

Of course, with any bill this size (over 2,200 pages in total), it takes a while to fully digest the implications for our customers and industry.

That said, it’s never too early to pull out some early highlights – to wit:

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Filed under Public Policy, Sales Tagged with Federal budget, IT modernization, Omnibus, Overseas Contingency Operations

Can data be protected through shared services?

February 22, 2018 by Lloyd McCoy Jr. Leave a comment

Lloyd McCoy Jr.

By Lloyd McCoy, DOD manager

Any guesses on how much data is generated every year by government and government-related apps? More than 1,000 billion bytes. It’s a staggering number.

Naturally you wonder how is all of that data protected? How do we protect the information that makes our electric grid, air traffic, voting processes and other government-controlled functions keep working safely and reliably?

One obvious answer is to improve the way services are shared between government agencies – and between government and private industry.

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Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with cybersecurity, data security, IT modernization, Shared Services, Trusted Internet Connections

How to capture more IT business from HHS in FY18

January 30, 2018 by Chris Wiedemann Leave a comment

Chris Wiedemann

By Chris Wiedemann, consultant

I have worked with immixGroup’s suppliers and partners on a wide range of federal agencies and their IT requirements and buying patterns. And one department consistently stands out as the most commonly asked about: Health and Human Services (HHS).

Diving into the numbers makes it clear why. At $13.8 billion, HHS’s top line IT budget is several times bigger than other large non-defense agencies. And although most of that money goes straight out the door in the form of grants to state and local agencies, the remainder still makes HHS the largest non-defense IT agency in government.

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Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), health and human services, IT modernization, Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Is this the new way of modernizing old systems?

January 3, 2018 by Chris Wiedemann Leave a comment

Chris Wiedemann MGT Act, tech modernization

By Chris Wiedemann, consultant

If you attended the Civilian FY18 Federal Budget Briefing at immixGroup’s most recent Government IT Sales Summit, one theme should have resonated throughout: the new ways government agencies are approaching the old problem of legacy system modernization.

It can be challenging to separate rhetoric from action sometimes, but there’s real energy in government around addressing the challenges of technology overhauls. Agencies are taking a customer-centric approach to design and development, with agile methodologies and human-centric design really becoming deep-rooted in civilian IT groups – and, perhaps more importantly, they’ve gotten an assist from Congress in the form of the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, which was signed into law as part of the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

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Filed under Government IT Sales Summit, Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with Federal budget, Government Sales, IT modernization, legacy systems, MGT Act

What you need to know about Army’s IT modernization strategy

April 12, 2017 by Stephanie Meloni Leave a comment

By Stephanie Meloni, senior consultant

The Army views multi-domain operations as the future operating concept it needs to gain a competitive advantage against adversaries.

Despite the possibility of receiving increased funding under a new administration, the Army will largely be focused on readiness, as opposed to modernization. Readiness ensures that soldiers have proper training and equipment, while modernization would mean investing in new capabilities and technologies.

The good news for the IT industry is that multi-domain operations is a concept that addresses both modernization and readiness. And it will ultimately help the warfighter out-maneuver adversaries in land, cyber and intelligence. (You can hear more in my recent on-demand webinar on the Army’s IT Modernization Plan.)

Implementing multi-domain operations will entail significant changes to enterprise architecture and networking infrastructure to give the Army the flexibility it needs when it comes to configuration management and data sharing. This concept is all about data integration—and performing analysis on the data itself. Here are some ways the Army will be using its data to improve operations:

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Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with Army, autonomous systems, Internet of Battlefield Things, Internet of Things, IT modernization, multi-domain operations, robotics, webinar

3 important IT trends to watch in 2017—Part II

January 5, 2017 by Chris Wiedemann Leave a comment

Chris Wiedemann_65 x 85 civ2017_010517 By Chris Wiedemann, consultant

It happens every time a new president takes the reins: People pontificate on what life will be like with the new administration.

Like most business sectors, the Trump administration’s potential effects on the government IT industry is a mystery. But there’s a safe bet that certain public sector IT priorities, like cloud, cybersecurity, analytics and overall IT modernization, will remain the same. You’ll see similar trends at the Department of Defense and the military branches.

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Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with Analytics, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, civilian agencies, Cloud, cybersecurity, Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation, IT modernization

DISA at the Center of Pentagon’s IT Modernization Plans

March 12, 2014 by Lloyd McCoy Jr. Leave a comment

by Lloyd McCoy Jr., Consultant

Despite its relatively small size within DOD, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has an outsize role in the Pentagon’s IT initiatives. When it comes to technology, DISA’s efforts are structured around four strategic goals:

Evolve the Joint Information Environment
Provide Joint Command and Control
Operate and Assure the Enterprise
Optimize Department Investments

These goals are in keeping with DISA’s role as the purveyor of command and control systems, enterprise infrastructure, and storage for the Department. DISA’s mission also places it in the unique position of be in the center of every facet of the Pentagon’s overall IT modernization goals and thus a key insertion point for the product community. DOD CIO Teri Takai’s “10-Point Plan for IT Modernization” is aimed at meeting the Department’s IT challenges and is a key facet of its overall goals of cutting waste and saving money. Several of those modernization goals with DISA’s role in them are as follows:

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