Perspective: Firms Big and Small, Growing Together

Monday, April 21, 2008

Firms Big and Small, Growing Together

In honor of National Small Business Week, here’s a link to Shiv Krishnan’s story in today’s Washington Post about coming to this country with $500 in his pocket and a desire for higher education and better opportunities.

Fifteen years after founding Indus Corp., he’s built a successful $100 million government contractor. His comments about what small business subcontractors can bring to a teaming relationship interested me, and I like what he wrote about focus and the general “Culture of Opportunity” theme to his story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/20/AR2008042001791.html

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Mission Statement

Welcome to Perspective. I’m navigating some new, uncharted waters here, with the first blog to my knowledge from an industry insider that will attempt to address the diverse issues and trends driving the small business federal government contracting community.

With that rather ambitious goal established up-front, I hope that I have some legitimate credibility to actually pull it off. I joined Altron Inc. as president in October 2007 (http://www.altroninc.com/), which is headquartered in Charleston, SC. We’re a small, woman-owned professional services business with deep experience in managing Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated facilities for customers like the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs and the US Department of Homeland Security. For over 15 years, we have been providing quality program management, technical and analytical support in information technology, facility management, logistics and business process reengineering, among other areas.

I have also spent the last 15+ years as a senior executive for Stanley Inc. (NYSE:SXE), another integrator here in the nation’s capital and a long-standing Altron teaming partner which I helped take public in 2006. We sub to them on a number of high-profile programs, and it’s my goal to build-out many additional such relationships within the greater-DC contracting community.My goals for this blog are therefore to share what I hope will be some actionable insights for other small businesses either looking to penetrate or grow their federal government contracting business. To that end, there are a number of themes I plan to comment on moving forward, and hope to revisit , based on your feedback.One that I’m particularly close to is something I like to call the “culture of opportunity.” Born and bred at companies like Stanley, this type of environment is one in which the entrepreneurial spirit is truly nurtured, and rewarded, with the means to grow one’s career as the business grows in-kind.

This culture, if successfully managed, ideally extends outside the company to intra-company mentor/protégé teaming relationships. I’ve also had some interesting experiences in that domain, and I hope to hear about your own.Of course, there’s industry consolidation, i.e., build or buy? While at Stanley, I played an active role in the creation and evolution of their strategic acquisition program. Of course, the goals of such a program, if any, can vary significantly across companies. In just the last year alone, for example, we’ve seen well-known players like SI International acquire LOGTEC, and ManTech do likewise with SRS Technologies. And those are just the tip of the iceberg. And, yes, I will have an occasional contrarian viewpoint on regulatory or legislative issues, such as the recent SBA proposal to limit awards to women-owned small businesses in what are considered to be several under-represented industries.I look forward to following up with you on many of these important issues that cut across our industry.

Mike Zaramba

Perspective

Monday, April 21, 2008

Firms Big and Small, Growing Together

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Mike Zaramba

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