A Government Contract Success Story
Date: 7/11/2003
San Diego Regional Technology Association by Joanne Aarstol
Many of you may know Silicon Space as a well-known Southern California web system integrator that provides e-Business strategic consulting and implementation services, including: net-centric document, records, and program management tools; business-process solutions; collaboration and workflow; and secure extranet and intranet applications. The company and its CEO Curt Nelson are active in San Diego's tech community, and their clients have included Fortune 1000 companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Disney, Gateway, and Union Bank of California.
What you may not know is that Silicon Space also provides the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) with many of the same services they've offered to commercial clients for years. As a contractor participating in the Program Management Team Omnibus (PMTO) contract vehicle, Silicon Space offers PMToolbox - a centralized, web-based application that enables team members, multiple award contractors, and supporting personnel to standardize and automate their business processes.
So successful is PMToolbox, in fact, that the company has launched a separate website, www.siliconspacefederal.com, for their government clients, offering Federal clients a “commercial” approach, featuring Program Management Tool (PMT) expertise, fast deployment, industry thought leadership and best practices and on time, on budget, on target deliverables. Safe to say that Silicon Space's venture into the land of government contracting has been a major success, profitable already and increasing revenue opportunities continuously.
So how did they get from being a pure commercial company with virtually no knowledge of the opportunities available in adapting and selling existing commercial products to public markets to targeting an entire business group to the cause?
"A series of Eureka moments," says Nelson. "There were a few pieces that just happened to fall into place." In the case of Silicon Space, it started when the company was looking for opportunities to grow at the same time that the Navy was undergoing a systems transformation under a mandate from e-government efficiency proponent Mark Forman...and upon further research, Silicon Space execs found that one of theirs was exactly the kind of solution that Navy/SPAWAR business systems program offices needed.
And since some luck is critical to most successful undertakings, Silicon Space had their share: a former Business Development exec added the company to a list of sub-contractors on PMTO, and another exec who lived near a Navy official in the Coronado Cays. These three factors got Silicon Space the bid to do a small analysis project for a single program office...and the rest is history.