Ryan Schradin
As the preeminent association for driving middle-market corporate growth in the greater Washington, D.C. metro area, ACG National Capital is all about fostering relationships between the senior level executives in the region that are responsible for getting deals done.
It’s for this reason that we’re incredibly excited to see our member and sponsor businesses and executives working together to grow and succeed. And we’re even more excited when one ACG National Capital member or sponsor recognizes their relationship with another and presents them with an award.
Well, that’s exactly what happened recently between Deltek and BDO.
Deltek recently presented BDO with their Global Consulting Partner of the Year award. To learn more about the relationship between these two companies, the market trends driving their success and why BDO was chosen for this award, we sat down with Dave Scott, the Managing Director for BDO’s Industry Specialty Services Group.
Here is what Dave had to say:
Corporate Growth, Capital Style (CGCS): Can you tell our readers a bit about BDO? What does the company do and what industry does it service?
Dave Scott: BDO is a professional services firm providing assurance, tax, and advisory services to a wide range of publicly traded and privately held companies.
Our Industry Specialty Services, National Government Contracting consulting practice provides a broad range of services for government contractors, including: accounting system design and implementation, government contract and grant compliance, outsourced accounting and other services.
CGCS: Can you tell our readers a bit about your partner company, Deltek? What does their solution do? What is the target market for their solution?
Dave Scott: Deltek is a global software company providing specialized ERP and project management solutions for project driven organizations, which include professional services, architectural and engineering, and government contracting.
Deltek’s ERP and project management solutions are often among the different systems that we help our government contracting customers implement.
CGCS: Why is Deltek’s solution so sought after in the government contracting industry? Why is it so important to implement these solutions?
Dave Scott: There is a lot of opportunity for government contractors right now. The Department of Defense (DoD) is drastically increasing its spending as a result of this administration and its focus on military readiness. But there are other agencies outside of the DoD that are increasing their spending, as well. With this much opportunity for government contracting companies, there is also steep competition—especially in the middle-market.
We’re seeing a lot of smaller and mid-sized government contracting firms—including some firms that are in the process of graduating or recently graduated the 8(a) program—that need to get better, more scalable business processes in place. This is to help them grow and scale, but it’s also essential for helping them compete against, and win business against, larger organizations.
While the larger organizations are effectively utilizing enterprise ERP and project management solutions, the smaller companies are still utilizing less sophisticated solutions—even Excel spreadsheets. This results in a lack of efficiency and breeds waste—which increases costs. Middle-market contractors need to get their costs down if they’re going to compete for government business. Those costs get passed through to the customer, meaning they’ll always be the higher priced option when competing against larger firms that have their processes down.
In some cases, it’s required that enterprise ERP, project management, or other certified financial systems and operational systems be in place for a company to win a government contract. The company will actually get points on their proposal if they have these things in place.
The government does this because they want to work with companies with processes in place and with systems that can be accessed and analyzed to ensure vendors are in compliance. An excellent example of this in action is the General Services Administration’s (GSA) OASIS integrated services contract.
If you’re going to compete and win government business, you need Deltek’s solutions to go head-to-head with other government contractors. And in some cases, you need them just to qualify to compete for a contract.
CGCS: What is BDO’s relationship with Deltek? What do you do for Deltek and its customers?
Dave Scott: BDO is a Deltek consulting and system integrator partner which specializes in the design, implementation, and support of the Deltek’s Costpoint and Project Portfolio Management (PPM)solutions. We work as one team with Deltek to ensure client success.
In short, we help our government contracting customers to identify areas of need in their enterprise and successfully implement the solutions that will help them be competitive in the extremely crowded government contracting marketplace.
When we work with a government contracting client, we start by discussing what their requirements are to get an understanding of what systems they have in place and how they can improve them. We look at their current capabilities and identify areas in which technology solutions can help support them and increase their efficiency. We also discuss and consider future contract opportunities or markets they are interested in entering.
In many cases, we suggest implementing some of Deltek’s software solutions to help them—usually in the areas of finance, project and earned value management, and compliance. From there, we do the installation and configuration of the software to ensure that it’s done correctly and work with them to ensure they have the processes in place to effectively use those solutions across the enterprise.
Ultimately, it’s about people, processes and tools. Does our customer have the right people? Are they trained and capable of using the solution? Do they have the right processes in place? Are these processes documented in an easy to understand fashion so that they can be perpetuated into the future? Do they have the tools necessary to support their business and operations? BDO works to handle the people and process part of that equation. Deltek provides the tools.
CGCS: Why are BDO’s services necessary for government contractors? How does BDO help Deltek customers?
Dave Scott: So many times, we see clients that think simply buying a software solution is the answer. They’re under the impression that it’ll be plug and play. That as soon as they buy it and install it, they’ll be up and running and immediately be more efficient.
That’s not always the case. In fact, that’s rarely the case. You need the processes in place to support these tools and use them effectively.
If a company is going to implement an ERP solution—which can be very complex and require significant organizational change—they need to be sure that their staff is trained and prepared for that. Also, they need to be sure that, that transition is planned out and handled effectively.
You don’t want to do a “Big Bang” transition. You want to implement a solution in a manageable way. That often involves a well-planned and strategic roll out of solutions. Start by identifying the most important and necessary system. Implement that system first, then train, install processes and document those processes before moving on to the next.
Before any of that can even start, you also have to think about employee communication. You need to ensure that you’re communicating with people and communicating how this new system is going to impact them. They need to be reassured of their place in the organization after these changes to help fight against resistance to the change.
BDO has years of experience in implementing these systems, as well as established best practices. We help these companies to do this correctly and follow the correct steps to an effective and efficient implementation so that they can be sure they get the most out of their investment.
CGCS: I understand that BDO was recently given a recognition or award from Deltek. Can you tell our readers a bit about this award and why BDO was chosen to receive it?
Dave Scott: Deltek recently recognized BDO as their Global Consulting Partner of the Year, which was a huge honor for us.
Deltek has a lot of partners. What sets BDO apart is that we work collaboratively with them to ensure that we best meet customer requirements. We work with them as one team—Deltek and BDO people work together to meet the needs of the customer—each offering consulting services and value to the relationship.
That’s what sets BDO apart from other Deltek partners in the government contracting space, and that’s why we were their Global Consulting Partner of the Year.
To learn more about the relationship between BDO and Deltek, click HERE.