CSC Hits NSA Outsourcing Goal

Computer Sciences Corp. has transitioned more than 1,000 federal and contractor employees to the private sector as part of its outsourcing contract with the National Security Agency, the company announced Dec. 4.

CSC and its team of contractors, called the Eagle Alliance, are responsible for much of the NSA's information technology infrastructure under a $2 billion contract the company won in July.

As part of the contract, CSC is moving federal IT staffers and contractor employees to jobs on its team. Work on the contract, known as Groundbreaker, began Nov. 1.

Moving employees is a common practice in commercial outsourcing projects but is relatively rare in government, said Paul Cofoni, president of the federal sector of El Segundo, Calif.-based CSC.

Cofoni credited NSA leadership and its strong support for the outsourcing project's success. Employees cannot be forced to move to the private sector, so any lack of support on the part of managers can be the death knell of a government outsourcing contract, he said.

Under the NSA contract, CSC and its primary teammate, Northrop Grumman Corp., Los Angeles, are modernizing and operating NSA's IT infrastructure in the areas of distributed computing, networks, enterprise management and telephony.

The contract also covers desktops, servers, office automation tools, secure and nonsecure voice and video services and access to NSA networks.

Other members of the CSC team include General Dynamics for telephony and networks; Keane Inc. for distributed computing and enterprise management support; and Omen Inc. to fully integrate the 67 members of the Eagle Alliance small-business consortium.

NSA Groundbreaker is one of several large outsourcing projects being closely watched in industry and government. The Army's Wholesale Logistics Modernization contract, won by CSC, and the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet, won by Electronic Data Systems Corp., also include the transition of government employees to the private sector.

The success of these projects may dictate how much large scale outsourcing the government does, Cofoni said.

Communicating with the employees is critical, he said. "This is a threshold event in their careers. It can be traumatic for them," Cofoni said. Cofoni himself came to CSC more than 10 years ago when his employer, General Dynamics Corp., signed an outsourcing agreement with CSC.

CSC uses a three-tier communications approach, he said. The company and the client's leaders hold a meeting with as many employees as possible to explain the contract, the benefits, what is happening with jobs, how the transition works, etc. That meeting lasts about an hour.

The second step is smaller group meetings of about 30 people, where more detailed information is given and more questions answered. The last step is to offer one-on-one meetings with employees.

"Once you get through that process, 80 percent of the people have settled down," he said. "It is important to get the facts out."