Comment from email: Report to the President on Federal IT Modernization

My experience in selling to government is that it has significant issues transforming IT (or any functional area) for a number of reasons. Here are the top three:

Innovation is only possible when you aren’t constantly pressured by the weight of the portfolio. I spoke with the Department of [redacted ;-)] about 5 years ago, and 88% of their budget was consumed by ongoing support. You cannot do new things when the old things eat up all of the money. The government as a whole needs to turn some things off. Most citizens have no idea these things ever existed, and most citizens will never miss them.

Secondly, if you are a small business, the government represents a great opportunity, but it is also the biggest time suck bureaucracy on the planet. Innovation will come from small teams, not huge vendors…but a lot of them give up because they cannot dedicate the resources that large vendors do as “a cost of doing business”. The incumbents always fight to keep the status quo.

Lastly, “one government” strategy is a no brainer. Most agencies set up contract vehicles that stifle small business participation and honestly, are just a massive PITA to deal with. We cannot bring services to the FAA because we don’t have SAVES and they don’t use GSA Schedule 70 (which we have)? All agency level contracts should just go away. CIO-SP3, Seaport, First Source, SEWP… all represent a dysfunctional government fiefdom. You’ll get different prices on the exact same thing across all of them, and only one and be the best price. Our government should have one payroll function, one contract shop, one IT shop…

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Steven Antonucci