Desktop Outsourcing
Desktop Outsourcing Unlocks Billions First Government Deals Hold Big Bucks for Contractors By Nick Wakeman When astronomer Carl Sagan looked to the sky, he saw billions of stars. And when companies look at two new government outsourcing contracts, they see billions of
Desktop Outsourcing Unlocks Billions
First Government Deals Hold Big Bucks for ContractorsBy Nick WakemanWhen astronomer Carl Sagan looked to the sky, he saw billions of stars. And when companies look at two new government outsourcing contracts, they see billions of dollars. "We are talking about words that start with Bs and not Ms," says James Hogan, president of Wang Government Services Inc., McLean, Va.
No task orders are expected under GSA Seat Management before fiscal year 1999 starts in October, according to Dyer. A few pilot projects will move in 1999 with a few more task orders in 2000. This contract will really have taken off around the end of 2000, he says.
"Right now, we buy everything by labor hours," she says. It will likely take three or four months for an agency to determine what its service level should be, she says. But once agencies start rolling out their task orders, awareness of the way they operate will be a key to winning business, industry officials say. "You cannot use a cookie cutter approach," says Phil Davis, senior vice president of aerospace systems group for OAO Corp. of Greenbelt, Md. OAO is seeking a prime role on the ODIN contract, but is on IBM's team of subcontractors for GSA's Seat Management contract. "We are primarily a research and development IT support firm," Davis says in explaining the company's strategy. "When it comes to NASA, that is our home." Hogan says: "Contractors must have a basic understanding of the customer, the environment the agency operates in as well as their mission. Those things are going to differ from one customer to the next." In order to sell GSA Seat Management, contractors will have to get to the IT policy-makers in the agencies, says Tom Sanders, senior vice president for business develop for DynCorp. "We are not going to be calling on the end users," he says. The primary sales pitch will be explaining the total cost of ownership for desktop computers, he says. Instead of buying technology, network operations and network management from different sources, the government can get those from a single source and get them for less money, Sanders says. "The [dwindling] budget is the driving force for the government," he says. |
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