What is Exhibit 53?
March 7, 2018 Leave a comment
As we’ve hopefully conveyed over the course of this “What is…?” series of blog posts, selling to the federal government is a complicated and involved process. It’s been compared to doing business in a different country, and in many ways, that’s an apt comparison. There are enough differences in rules, language and requirements that you can’t just bring commercial sales tactics to bear and expect to be successful.
However, there are some instances where those different rules work in our favor. For example, because the government primarily spends money that is appropriated from taxes, it’s required to show how it’s being used. Which brings us to agency IT Portfolios, formerly (and still informally) known as the Exhibit 53.
By ReLita Clarke, learning and development manager
has been shifting from the ingrained idea of data center consolidation to data center optimization in an effort to continue to realize efficiencies and reduce costs. When OMB changed the definition of what constituted a data center a few years ago, the number of data centers to be closed dramatically increased from around 1,200 of 3,100 total, to over 7,000 total, making data center closure goals impossible to reach. As a result, we’ve seen a shift from a policy initially emphasizing closures to one that’s demanding increased efficiency out of existing facilities. These consolidation and optimization efforts are part of the government’s “cloud first” approach to reduce IT infrastructure through virtualization of hardware and software and hosting data in private or public clouds.
Government Sales Insider 