Nov 25 2009
Deltek, Inc. (Nasdaq: PROJ), the leading provider of enterprise applications software for project-focused businesses, recently concluded its first annual Clarity event where the findings from one of the industry’s largest surveys of the government contracting marketplace were unveiled.
Hundreds of professionals from government contractors across the United States joined Deltek and many of its partners to hear the results from a comprehensive government contracting study and share thoughts on the state of the market going into 2010. In addition to hearing from industry thought leaders from Deltek and INPUT, all event attendees received Deltek’s landmark GovCon Industry Highlights Report that contains the relevant statistics and analysis from the industry study.
In this era of increased competition for Federal dollars, the government contractors that understand the drivers in the industry and what investments they need to make to be more competitive are best positioned to prosper in 2010 and beyond. Attendees at Clarity ’09 received unique insight into multiple industry and company drivers that are crucial to the success of government contractors in this increasingly dynamic industry. The drivers discussed included trends in business development, project management, financial management, operations, and compliance. Now that the results of the survey have been published, attendees at Clarity ‘09 will be able to benchmark their financial, operational, and business development metrics against other industry leaders.
"With the tremendous change we are seeing in government contracting, contractors need strong benchmarks that they can use to measure company performance," said Kevin Plexico, SVP Research & Analysis Services for INPUT. "Deltek did a fantastic job establishing those benchmarks through their industry study and presenting them to the large audience at the Clarity '09 event."
“The content presented at Clarity ’09 was spot on and provided the numerous executives in the audience with an actionable vision of the direction of the industry,” said Barbara Ashe, Executive Vice President of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. “The presenters offered not just data, but also meaningful interpretation of what the data means. Deltek’s domain expertise and market leadership position turned the survey results into real conclusions, and I encourage all government contractor executives to read the GovCon Industry Highlights Report that Deltek developed for those in attendance.”
Besides yielding insight into the trends, challenges, and opportunities facing leading government contractors, the breakthrough industry study challenged commonly held myths about the government contracting marketplace. For example, despite ideas to the contrary:
- The government contracting market is growing – larger firms in particular are growing faster than expected, on the order of 10%.
- The government contracting mergers and acquisition (M&A) environment is not vibrant – over 85% of large firms did not indicate any definite M&A plans in 2010.
- Project Management remains an immature discipline in most firms – only 11% of large firms believed their Project Management initiatives were very mature.
- On average, big firms do not do things faster and more efficiently than smaller firms – in one notable example, the average invoicing cycle for small firms was four times shorter than for big firms.
- The DCAA has not adopted a more confrontational stance with contractors – surprisingly, more than 83% of contractors said their relationship with the DCAA was good or excellent.
“With a 26-year history of serving the needs of the government contracting world, we had a unique opportunity to leverage our market leadership position to do an in-depth study of the drivers affecting contractors today,” said Bill Clark, Deltek’s EVP and CMO. “We initiated the Clarity study in an effort to partner with the government contracting community to identify trends, share best practices, and develop strategies to achieve success in this rapidly changing marketplace.”
Companies that did not attend Clarity ’09 can gain access to the GovCon Industry Highlights report by visiting: http://www.deltek.com/clarity09/.
Source: http://www.deltek.com/