Charles Lyons-Burt
Jean-Francois “Boodi” Blanc is a proven force in the information technology and government services world. He spent the first six years of his career in the public sector as a nuclear engineer. Thereafter, he transitioned to the private sector, where he has worked for the last 24 years serving federal agencies at companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM and most recently, Akima.
Blanc’s expertise ranges from sales, IT strategy and data center and cloud to software-as-a-service and enterprise resource management. Blanc last spoke with ExecutiveBiz’s sister publication, GovCon Wire, when he joined SDV INTERNATIONAL as partner and chief strategy officer in March 2022. Since that conversation, he has been deeply involved in executing the company’s sales strategy and, in collaboration with SDV’s CEO, Kim Waiyaboon, helped to earn various small business certifications.
During his latest Spotlight interview, Blanc spoke with ExecutiveBiz about the intensity of the competition of the GovCon market, the opportunities he foresees for SDV in the near future and more.
Where are you seeing opportunities for expansion in your company’s portfolio? What new capabilities or markets are you eyeing?
As I discussed in my last interview, our goal is to expand in our core and adjacent capabilities and markets and we are finding success in both. In the first week of January, we were blessed to receive a net new more than $21 million contract to support the Defense Health Agency in multiple functional and geographic areas, primarily in information technology performance monitoring, enhancement and automation. That same week we also received an upwards of $6 million follow-on contract for some of our existing DHA work for full stack operations and management and application development. Both contracts are a testament to our delivery team’s ability to execute and our excellent Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System.
Leveraging our existing Oracle, SAP, robotic process automation and cybersecurity skills, we are also seeing opportunity with brand new clients/commands at the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Defense Information Systems Agency and Special Operations Command. We plan to announce wins from many if not all of these organizations within the year. Of course, much of this would not be possible without our valued teaming partners to whom we are most grateful. Our teaming partners are an integral part of our growth strategy.
Lastly, we’ve won and are in the process of negotiating a few more commercial projects which are helpful in balancing our profit and loss portfolio.
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?
This is a great question for any company; large, mid or small. There are never unlimited bid and proposal dollars or resources, and we are no exception with our small but growing team. We rely on a diversified approach, combining subcontracting work, 8a/woman-owned small business/small-disadvantaged business/small business set-aside work and full and open competition. For full prime bids we use our end-to-end sales process to gate each bid against a set of criteria to make sure we have or can get to an acceptable probability to win or Pwin for the B&P. If we don’t have the resources or the Pwin is too low, we don’t bid. As you know, no-bidding can be just as important as bidding. We must take swings, but they are calculated.
What’s the most impactful trend you’re currently seeing in the GovCon market? How are you seeing GovCon organizations respond to that trend?
I like what I’m seeing with the rapid prototyping and smaller more targeted acquisitions and I’m not necessarily talking about other transaction authorities, just in general. We all realize the need to accelerate the acquisition cycle. We obviously still have a long way to go but if something isn’t working, failing fast, learning from it and moving on is important. To be clear, I don’t mean rushing an acquisition—nothing good will come from bad or incomplete requirements. Industry engagement including meeting with companies to accomplish market research is critical to proper requirements determination.
How are you seeing GovCon companies respond to increased consolidation and competition? Do you anticipate that this trend will continue?
Well, it doesn’t look like it is slowing down much! Competition is as fierce as always but that is good for our clients. Corporate acquisitions are good for capital-efficient and nimble companies like ours.
On the buy side, you may have seen (from our posts) we are on the hunt for smaller, fast-growing companies that would be passed over by the bigs and mids but will help our growth strategy from an inorganic perspective. You may see an announcement or two in the not-too-distant future.
What advice do you have for GovCon companies trying to move up in today’s market and increase profitability?
I really feel for new companies in this market. The barriers to entry, as you’ve identified, are as high as ever. I recommend companies find a capability and client niche and hold on with everything they have. After that, they can start to expand and diversify slowly and carefully. They can also reach out to SDV INTERNATIONAL to discuss opportunities for partnership and strategic investment opportunities to accelerate growth.
