Charles Lyons-Burt
Zhenia Klevitsky comes to her new role at cBEYONData, which she began in January, with a wealth of government services experience at small, mid-size and large businesses. Her resume includes time at Booz Allen Hamilton, LMI, PwC, Guidehouse and Sev1Tech, where she sharpened her skills in market expansion and federal agency relationships.
Klevitsky is chief growth officer at cBEYONData and took time to sit down with ExecutiveBiz and walk us through the company’s immense offerings, enlighten us about some of its strategies and share her perspective from a quarter century in the business.
How has GovCon changed since you began your career, and what’s your take on the market now?
I started my career in GovCon 25 years ago. Although a lot has stayed consistent, some of the areas that have changed include the following:
1. Technological advancements: The rapid development of technology has had a profound impact on GovCon. Introduction of digital solutions, automation, data analytics, cloud computing and cybersecurity measures have reshaped the way government contracts are executed and managed.
2. Increased Competition: The GovCon market has become more competitive with the entry of new players, including startups and small businesses. In fact, the current administration increased the share of federal contracting dollars going to small businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, or SDBs, to 15 percent by fiscal year 2025, a 50 percent increase from spending levels since 2021.
3. Emphasis on cost efficiency: Government agencies have increasingly focused on cost-effective solutions, requiring contractors to deliver high-quality services or products at competitive prices. This emphasis on cost efficiency necessitates enhanced project management, process optimization and resource utilization.
4. Shift toward innovation: Government agencies are actively seeking innovative solutions to modernize their operations, enhance citizen services and address emerging challenges. This push toward innovation opens opportunities for contractors who can provide cutting-edge technologies and ideas.
5. Focus on cybersecurity: With the increasing cybersecurity threats faced by governments, there is a growing need for contractors who can provide robust security measures and solutions to safeguard sensitive data and critical infrastructure.
6. Sustainable and social impact considerations: There is an increasing emphasis on sustainability, environmental impact and social responsibility in GovCon. Contractors who can demonstrate their commitment to these factors may gain a competitive edge. We are starting to see these requirements in Draft GWAC requirements such as Alliant 3 and NASA SEWP VI.
What’s the most impactful trend you’re currently seeing in the GovCon market? How are you seeing GovCon organizations respond to that trend?
One of the most impactful trends in the GovCon market is the increasing emphasis on data analytics and artificial intelligence. Industry has recognized the value of data-driven decision-making and is leveraging advanced analytics techniques and AI capabilities to derive actionable insights from vast amounts of data.
Industry is using data analytics to enhance operational efficiency, optimize resource allocation, and improve service delivery to government agencies. Additionally, AI technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing are being employed to automate routine tasks, streamline processes, and enhance customer experiences. These technologies not only improve efficiency but also enable better resource utilization and cost optimization.
To adapt to this trend, industry is investing in data management infrastructure, including data storage, processing and security. They are also recruiting skilled data scientists, analysts and AI specialists to extract insights from data and develop innovative solutions. Additionally, partnerships with technology companies and collaborations with research institutions are being formed to stay at the forefront of advancements in data analytics and AI.
Where are you seeing opportunities for expansion in cBEYONData’s portfolio? What new capabilities or markets are you eyeing?
cBEYONData core capabilities span across data science, digital transformation, business optimization around enterprise resource planning operations and business support and technology solutions around business intelligence and analytical services related to financial management and analytics, as well as budget and spend. We deliver innovative, interoperable, cloud-based and cross-domain enterprise solutions and services.
We do work across the federal government, and we see opportunities around expanding our portfolio in areas where our customers are using data-driven decision making. We provide data science and analytics services to help government organizations collect, analyze and interpret data to drive informed decision-making. This includes predictive models, conducting data mining and visualization and providing insights to improve operational efficiency and resource allocation.
The specific capabilities we are focusing on include:
- cBEYONData’s lifecycle business process reengineering, or BPR, support yields more efficient processes and staff utilization. We engage with stakeholders, baseline current processes, identify redundant steps and decision points that increase overhead and reduce response time, achieve consensus among stakeholders, and assist them with the adoption of new processes.
- cBEYONData has extensive experience and extraordinary expertise in the development of extract, transform and load — a.k.a. ETL — techniques and tools. Our capability to ingest, prioritize, cleanse and migrate large and complex data sets is a linchpin in our data migration and management efforts when we implement an enterprise data warehouse. For example, we are implementing a large-scale data warehouse in the government using Amazon Web Services Redshift, Data Migration Service and Cloud Watch.
- We have deep knowledge of, and experience implementing numerous business intelligence, or BI, platforms and systems such as SAP Business Objects, Microsoft Power BI, Oracle Analytics Server, Oracle Business Intelligence and QLIK Sense. We deliver analytical solutions that include new and enhanced data sets, custom reports and dashboards. We maximize our clients’ access to their data and expand the analytical capabilities they can apply to create new information and insights.
- We have had great success introducing robotic process automation solutions for clients. We use a complexity rating methodology to determine the level of effort required for a given automation.
- cBEYONData has extensive knowledge of big data, data warehousing, BI and analytics and business information frameworks. We help our federal clients develop scalable solutions to collect, store, aggregate and manage large, complex data sets and enable quick access for analysis to support mission critical decision-making. We work with the leading platforms and systems including AWS, Microsoft Azure, SAP, Teradata, Oracle and Hadoop.
- cBEYONData has exceptional expertise in ERP systems, along with financial data management and analysis. This expertise includes the SAP, Oracle Financials and CGI Momentum systems and support for major government systems.
We also have technology solutions that map to the government’s need. These include:
cBEYONData CFO Control Tower – Our CFO Control Tower solution is a purpose-built data warehouse and a collection of prebuilt “content” — financial reports, analytics, dashboards, external compliance reporting tools and database connectors — that integrate with multiple commercial and federal financial systems. These Section 508-compliant tools are specifically designed to enable execution of the federal government financial budgeting and reporting process.
cBEYONDLab – cBEYONDLab is a rapidly deployed, cloud-hosted prototyping and test environment where clients can evaluate new technologies and refined processes, and test system migration and integration approaches. We configure cBEYONDLab to match the client’s enterprise environment and use a client’s representative data model and use cases to test new functionality in their target environment.
Humanless Unmatched Transaction – HunT is an automation solution and a proprietary, cloud-based, ML-enabled RPA application. It was developed to resolve unmatched disbursements, or UMD, in Department of Defense financial data. HUnT uses ML to process massive amounts of data to identify patterns and make future predictions. The results are passed to RPA automations to make the necessary corrections.
We see a lot of opportunity in the GovCon market with its ever-increasing emphasis on and shifts toward innovation and cost efficiency.
How do you set your priorities around limited capture dollars? What goes into the decision making process of what contracts you want to go after?
With limited budget and proposals dollars, cBEYONData makes informed decisions with respect to which opportunities and markets we pursue. We are also flexible and adapt quickly when assessing priorities. Our decision-making process includes the following:
- Alignment with business strategy: We evaluate how pursuing a particular contract aligns with our overall business strategy and goals. This involves assessing whether the contract fits within their core competencies, target market segments and long-term growth plans.
2. Market research and opportunity assessment: We conduct thorough market research is essential to identify potential contract opportunities. We analyze factors such as the size of the contract, competition, customer requirements, past performance and future demand in the specific government agency, which helps prioritize contracts that have a higher probability of success and favorable return on investment.
3. Available resources and budget: We take into consideration our financial capacity and technical capabilities to pursue and deliver on a particular contract.
4. Risk analysis and mitigation: We evaluate the associated risks, such as project complexity, performance requirements, contract terms and regulatory compliance.
5. Competitive advantage and differentiation: We evaluate our competitive advantage when deciding which contracts to pursue by assessing our unique strengths, past performance, reputation and capabilities.
6. Relationship-building and business development: We consider the strength of our relationships and assess whether pursuing a specific contract strengthens or expands those relationships. This includes stablished partnerships or teaming arrangements.
