William McCormick
Aaron Butler, vice president of Federal Sales with ID Technologies, recently spoke with ExecutiveBiz about the most critical challenges facing those in the federal sector as cyber hygiene becomes a necessity for all government agencies and federal organizations.
In addition, Butler also detailed the latest growth initiatives for ID Technologies as well as the company’s efforts to accomplish its growth goals for the rest of 2022 and drive value for its customers and workforce during the latest Executive Spotlight interview.
“ID Technologies leans into the approach that the mission and our customers come first. We are always working with our partners and our ecosystem to create a mission solution and not a product-type solution that makes sense. We listen to our customers and that matches with CACI’s mentality perfectly. That’s why it’s a natural marriage and it’s going to be positive for all of us.”
You can read the full interview with Aaron Butler below:
ExecutiveBiz: What can you tell us about the company’s recent growth initiatives and how you’re driving value for your customers through contract awards, acquisitions and other aspects across the federal sector?
Aaron Butler: “It’s been an extremely interesting six to 12 months for us all. With our critical acquisitions, ID Technologies has really focused in on our growth strategy and key initiatives that tend to fall into three different buckets for us.
In my new role as the vice president of Sales, my focus is on all of ID Technologies’ classic contracts as well as our direct-to-customer relationships and sales mechanisms. Beyond just those tasks, we also have the product side of our company. Our company is built around securing remote access to government agencies that require access to classified or unsecured data.
ID Technologies has a lot of fascinating products that frankly couldn’t have been developed at a better time as we have all adapted to the telework and remote work changes following the pandemic. The third bucket is a new kind of growth strategy and business model for us now that we’ve been acquired ourselves by CACI.
In addition, we also made our own acquisition of Attila Security back to July to help promote and grow our portfolio on the OEM side. With ID Technologies being acquired by CACI, the focus now is on how to advance our IT modernization efforts within a bigger company of a billion-dollar portfolio.
While CACI is a monster services organization, the organization had little expertise in the classic commodity hardware and contracts on the IT acquisition side. That’s where ID Technologies can bring a very strong portfolio of contracts that we’re maintained as a small business. Under CACI, we’re now competing against a lot of the larger businesses.
As a result, our strategy is threefold and focused on continuing to maintain the legacy contracts that ID Technologies has been holding across the IT commodity hardware space. How do we integrate our acquisitions and the growth strategy that we’ve created on the OEM portfolio side?
How do we grow under the CACI umbrella, especially with us being a newer company? We will be operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary to maintain our same go-to-market strategy. Over the last three years, ID Technologies has gone from one of a thousand to differentiate ourselves and now be equipped with CACI’s resources. The sky is the limit for ID Technologies now.”
ExecutiveBiz: What are your strategic goals for the coming year? What do you hope to accomplish and any new markets that you’re keeping an eye on in the federal sector?
Aaron Butler: “As get back into talking about the growth aspects, bing on the product side and having a privatized business, it’s a much more diverse situation growing an OEM than it is growing in contract capture. It’s always about the proposals and business development.
An OEM is about the supply chain and manufacturing. It’s about creating mission-specific products to meet customer requirements. To state again, we’re all been dealing with this negative period of time over the last two years, but it’s opened up new opportunities for ID Technologies with everyone working remote and needing to work outside of a government-regulated facility.
How do we help those folks who have classified requirements and need access to that data from their home, Starbucks, or whatever hotel they’re staying in for the night? The trick is building a product set that’s put together on commercial solutions for classified programs that provide access and a vehicle for change in the marketplace.
Franky, government agencies have really aligned their strategies with the ever-growing workforce that the younger generation coming out of college are looking for to work with the latest technology capabilities.
The desk-driven or cubicle-based working environment isn’t what the future looks like. ID Technologies has created a product set that allows for that flexibility and gives us an upper hand in terms of recruitment for any of the federal agencies that are buying into the concept.”
ExecutiveBiz: What do you see as the most critical challenges facing those in the federal sector as cybersecurity continues to rise in importance and cyber hygiene becomes a necessity for all companies and even more critical at the national security level?
Aaron Butler: “As we talk about cybersecurity and cyber threats as well as the rules and regulations that are changing on a daily basis across the private and public sectors, these threats are also growing on a daily basis. We’re heading in the direction of cyber-centric warfare as opposed to a significant military operation despite current events, it’s not a look into what the future of warfare will be.
Part of the problem with cybersecurity is that attacks are ever-present in each major utility across the globe whether it’s energy, financial, healthcare, etc. Everyone is under attack all of the time and if you don’t have a posture that establishes a defensive or even an offensive approach then you’re going to find yourself behind the eight ball very quickly.
Every organization across the federal government that ID Technologies talks to or sits down with brings up cybersecurity within the first five minutes of the meeting.
What are you doing to address this?
What are your thoughts on that?
What do your partnerships look like?
As ID Technologies and the people we work with engage with cybersecurity, everything we are doing is just the tip of the spear as far as it comes to looking at cyber and how we’re taking on the latest government regulations and government organization to create commercial products and commercial off the shelf ideas that are easily digested and ingested by the government.
ID Technologies is now mainly focused on the cyber side, which also has a strong edge to the data center approach in the area because of just the natural security standards that we take in order to build a product. NSA is the one maintaining those regulations so who else would be better to maintain them across the federal government.
This is what ID Technologies does a little differently than everyone else and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we’re all working toward the same goal. We’re all working to create a barrier between national security and those that are threatening that space.
The truth is that we don’t have unlimited resources. We don’t have unlimited changes. The biggest threats are actually being funded by our biggest adversaries. ID Technologies has that funding is absolutely in the government space. Whoever is making that call in the White House has showcased why we need to create the solutions that are also cost-effective and secure.”
