GovernmentVAR Awards: Conquering Goliath

Success in the public sector requires a lot of juggling. For solution providers, there's juggling of market knowledge, product expertise and contracting navigation. For vendors, there's juggling of IT development, industry focus and--if channel-friendly--partner support.

So, it's with good reason that the nine solution providers, vendors and vendor executives presented with 2006 GovernmentVAR Awards be recognized. Each demonstrated excellence in a market rife with challenges, increased competition and rising expectations. While many companies demonstrated growth, the award winners took a fresh approach to their businesses, setting themselves apart with creative market strategies, solutions and services.

Success In the Channel

The honored solution providers prove that success has little to do with size but rather with revenue growth and consistent contract wins. These are not instances of David-vs.-Goliath warfare, says Frank Lancione, senior vice president of corporate business development at Federal Solution Provider of the Year NCI Information Systems. These are David-vs.-David battles.

"When you're in a war room with 15 to 20 of your closest friends sweating out a proposal on a Friday night, you're not up against the 125,000 employees of Lockheed Martin or the 120,000 employees of Northrop Grumman," he said. "You're up against 15 to 20 other guys just like you who are in a war room across town working on that same proposal."

For NCI, 12 percent growth in federal revenue came from a true devotion to the customer. When you have only a handful of customers, Lancione says, the management team mobilizes resources to nurture customers.

Across the board, in fact, this year's winners developed market strategies suited to the needs of the targeted customer segment.

Education Solution Provider of the Year Annese and Associates works cooperatively with state-education service agencies that influence purchasing decisions and technology initiatives in K-12. Local Solution Provider of the Year winner Adesta serves as a single point of contact to small municipalities that struggle to find affordable communications networks. Government Solution Provider of the Year Jeskell provides on-demand IT solutions that help streamline administrative operations and reduce government's operational costs. And Editor's Choice Presidio designs and manages enterprise networks that improve processes for all segments of the public sector, resulting in more than $140 million in revenue.

NIC earned the title of State Solution Provider of the Year by putting a new spin on a lucrative, well-established market: e-government. The company provides outsourced portal technology that enables agencies to offer citizens online services, such as tax preparation and driver's-license renewals. The agencies charge citizens transaction fees, and the VAR, in turn, collects money from the agencies.

"We don't get paid unless the customer likes our solutions and sees a return [on investment]," says Harry Herington, president of Olathe, Kan.-based NIC. "That means we have to provide not only what the customer asks for but also what the constituents need and want. We act as influencer and educator for the customer, making sure they understand what our technology can provide."

Apparently, the solution provider has found itself a niche. In 2005, NIC derived 90 percent of its revenue--more than $53 million--from state agencies.

NEXT: How D-Link is doing right by partners, plus who won for Lifetime Achievement and Government Channel Executive of the Year.

Of course, the success of any solution provider depends largely on which vendors it chooses as partners. It's not just a company's technology that determines its worth as a team member. VARs also consider the quality of a vendor's public-sector program and the executive team that leads it.

D-Link, winner of the Public Sector Partner Program of the Year, drives and supports the 40 percent of its business that goes to government and education by providing VARs with special pricing programs, access to state contracts, market reps and 24x7 support.

GovernmentVAR also presented Robert Samson, former general manager of IBM's global public sector and now at the vendor's Systems Group, with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

At Cisco, which boasts more than $1 billion in revenue from the federal space alone, GovernmentVAR named operations director of federal channels Dawn Duross the Government Channel Executive of the Year.

Part of what earned Duross the title was channel chatter. Solution providers consistently name her as someone who strives to make herself and her team accessible and visible. Duross also drove the addition of new marketing resources and tools, and a renewed focus on the federal space, complete with a beefed-up channel organization, as well as incentives and training programs that cater specifically to the needs of federal partners. Through Cisco's finance division, loans and training programs, Duross offers assistance to small businesses that face distinctive challenges in serving public-sector customers. With so many federal policies driving work to that sector, there's a huge potential for return for small businesses that show their worth, Duross says.

"I like the concept of these challenged companies going out, finding business opportunities and building a reputation that makes them an asset," she says, adding that Cisco is currently working with Comstor to offer an educational series for SMBs.

Regarding Cisco's overall federal-market strategy, Duross drove the investment in relationships with integrators and service providers, recognizing that customers were transitioning away from products alone. "In the federal government, there's a lot more than just the reseller," she says. "There are a lot of moving parts."