ACG National Capital
Among today’s government contractors, it is often the case
that size
confers a competitive advantage. Large, multi-billion dollar government
contractors have more resources, in-house expertise and other forms of valuable
capital that their smaller competitors simply cannot match. It also enables
efficiencies of scale that give them the advantage when bidding on government
business.
This is one of a handful of reasons why we’ve seen such immense consolidation
in the government contracting industry in the past few years.
Perspecta, this year’s Deal Team of the Year Corporate Growth Award winner, seems to have embraced this idea wholeheartedly.
The product of a three-way merger between DXC Technology’s U.S. Public Sector business with Vencore Holding Corporation and KeyPoint Government Solutions, Perspecta emerged from last year’s deal as a $4 billion juggernaut – one of the top five pure-play government services providers on the market today.
To look at the tremendous success that Perspecta has had though, overlooks the challenges that such a complex merger presented and that our conversation with Mac Curtis, president and chief executive officer at Perspecta, highlighted.
Merging companies – each with their own corporate cultures and service offerings, not to mention each of their separate HR, payroll, and benefits infrastructures – into one cohesive entity is enough of a challenge when only two companies are coming together. Perspecta is the product of the successful merger of three.
To get a deeper understanding of how Perspecta accomplished this feat and why they have been so successful post-merger, we sat down with Mr. Curtis. This is what he had to say:
Corporate Growth Capital Style (CGCS): To begin, tell us a little bit about Perspecta. What services and solutions does the company offer? Does Perspecta only service the government?
Mac Curtis: We were formed to take on our nation’s most important work by bringing diverse capabilities to defense, intelligence, civilian, health care, and state and local government customers.
With core offerings in mission services, digital transformation, cybersecurity and enterprise operations, our team of more than 14,000 engineers, analysts, investigators and architects work tirelessly to not only execute the mission but build and support the backbone that enables it.
CGCS: Why is Perspecta uniquely qualified to help the government in these fields?
Mac Curtis: We are helping government customers build a better nation by combining clear thinking with bold ideas to bring better, faster, more efficient technology and processes to market.
With our uncanny ability to innovate, along with 270+ issued, licensed and pending patents, it is qualified to lead these modernization efforts. As a proven digital transformation partner, we help our customers plan, design and implement cloud-enabled services.
Furthermore, our innovative applied research and large-scale cybersecurity experience helps customers manage risk on their most highly-valued assets. And, we drive continuous improvement by integrating IP, analytics and automation into our offerings and solutions.
CGCS: Perspecta has a very interesting story. Can you tell our readers a little bit about how the company came to be?
Mac Curtis: On June 1, 2018, we launched as a public company, bringing together DXC Technology’s U.S. Public Sector business with Vencore Holding Corporation and KeyPoint Government Solutions, Inc., two Veritas Capital portfolio companies.
The deal created the fifth largest pure-play government services provider and a growth platform comprised of some of the most iconic names in the history of government services.
CGCS: Why were the three organizations selected to become Perspecta?
Mac Curtis: Each individual company brought different strengths to the formation of Perspecta. When brought together, the new company instantly offered a powerful combination of skills, capabilities and expertise when compared to others in the marketplace.
Further, the collective experience and established trust among government customers provided a unique value proposition for the formation of the company despite it being a “new” company.
CGCS: There must be many challenges that arise when trying to bring together three disparate organizations. What were some of the largest challenges that Perspecta faced when bringing the company together?
Mac Curtis: Bringing together three different companies on three disparate networks, means bringing together three different cultures and value sets. When forming Perspecta, the team was tasked with ensuring that these cultures and values did not disappear, while also building a new culture and value set that would be unique to Perspecta and embraced by all.
We knew that creating a new culture, a sense of “One Perspecta.” would be critical to our success. Through robust communication mechanisms and regular leadership town halls, this newly united workforce is operating as a single force under a unified brand, with common benefits and policies and broad-based equity participation.
CGCS: What key practices did your management team follow in order to make sure that the transaction and integration was an award-winning success?
Mac Curtis: For starters, our day one transition occurred smoothly with no disruption in service to our customers. Since that time, we have been working to build a strong, lasting foundation for our employees and our company.
The most important practice the Perspecta executive and management team followed throughout the transaction, and continues to follow today through the integration, is a focus on ensuring clear, effective communication within management and across the growing landscape of Perspecta employees.
CGCS: What about integrating all three companies’ worth of unique company cultures, HR and benefits infrastructures? That must have been a daunting challenge as well.
Mac Curtis: With thousands of employees coming together from three different organizations, on three different networks, it was critical to provide regular integration information, including HR and benefits, enterprise IT, security and other functional information to everyone as seamlessly as possible. We instituted bi-weekly integration email newsletters and launched an integrated mobile app to ensure all 14,000+ employees had access to pertinent company information at the fingertips.
Additionally, with offices spread across the country, one of the foundational activities to support the transition was travelling to the various office locations and speak to employees directly about the vision for the new company, as well as the culture Perspecta would create, building on the best components of the three legacy organizations.
All of this helped to cultivate a combined workforce under a unified brand and culture as quickly as possible.
CGCS: The core of any government contracting company is of course its service offerings, so how did you organize all three companies’ services into once cohesive system?
Mac Curtis: In regards to our offerings, early on we established the Perspecta pyramid, which stacks the capabilities of the three legacy organizations into a pyramid to illustrate the truly unique industry powerhouse that is Perspecta. Our unique solutioning taxonomy is built around 10 primary offering families that together work to help our customers achieve their missions, transform to digital environments, optimize their enterprises and innovate for tomorrow.
CGCS: Following the company’s formation, Perspecta won an impressive number of federal contracts in 2018. Especially with so many major, established players in this space, how was Perspecta able to compete so successfully for these contracts? What was the company’s differentiator in a crowded and competitive government technology marketplace?
Mac Curtis: Our success thus far in winning contracts is a testament to the increasing breadth and depth of the services and expertise being offered to customers. The formation of Perspecta has enabled the company to compete for contracts that the previous legacy companies would not have been able to, individually. The collective expertise and experience that’s been brought together has undoubtedly allowed Perspecta to emerge as a bigger competitor in the market. One of Perspecta’s biggest differentiators is its unique opportunity to build on the capabilities and success of three longstanding legacies with the scale and wisdom to solve any problem.
Additionally, our applied research arm, Perspecta Labs, is a strong differentiator from industry competitors. This in-house research and development capability allows Perspecta to offer customers innovative technologies and next-gen services across cybersecurity, mobility, data analytics, cloud computing, application services and networking.
As the innovation hub for the company, Perspecta Labs is molding the future of emerging technologies by leading cutting-edge research into cybersecurity, machine learning, artificial intelligence, mobile communications and internet of things (IoT) technologies that provides Perspecta’s customers with transformative insights and real-time situational intelligence.
To learn more about Perspecta, click HERE.
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