Management

How to Match Service Offerings to Your Federal Agency’s Needs

Third-party vendors have knowledge that agencies frequently lack.

Neil Graver is an executive technology strategist for CDW and a technology leader with more than 20 years of experience.

Firooz Ghanbarzadeh

Firooz Ghanbarzadeh is Director of Data Center Solutions at CDW.

Government agencies seeking IT modernization sometimes approach third-party vendors wanting all available services without really understanding what’s needed to fulfill their mission. This lack of clarity may lead to blanket service requests that are far beyond what is necessary or that don’t connect services to specific mission objectives.

How can government leverage industry relationships to identify and acquire the digital services it truly needs?

IT Services Knowledge Gaps Abound Within Agencies

A number of internal challenges can block agencies’ efforts to find and implement the right services. For one thing, they may not understand the services offered or how they align to specific needs.

The rapid development of new technologies in areas including artificial intelligence and cybersecurity further complicates the problem. It’s hard to know what to ask vendors about emerging technologies or trends when they are always changing.

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In addition, agencies must balance skill sets and resource constraints. They need to organize their modernization efforts around budget cycles and may not know which services best support that process.

Agencies Must Be Introspective About Their Missions

Agencies should look within before securing services to support their modernizations. What’s the problem that needs fixing? Is it a slow-moving manual process or ineffective customer service delivery? Knowing what isn’t functioning effectively is crucial to achieving mission outcome.

Federal customers can also dive deeper into the various types of services offered.

There are implementation services that bring solutions online, as well as managed services, which partially or fully outsource solutions. Lately, in response to the architectural changes that come with cloud adoption, we’re seeing a growing need for professional services, including consulting to help align solutions to specific outcomes.

DISCOVER: FedRAMP is evolving to meet agencies’ cloud service needs.

Given the variety of offerings, it’s important to widen the aperture and explore new approaches. This opens the door to more in-depth conversations with potential partners, who should be able to pinpoint what services suit the agency, what should be outsourced and what should be handled internally.

Ask the partner about what options are available and let them determine the pros and cons of various offerings.

Develop a Multiyear IT Services Strategy While Adding Agility

CDW can help agency leaders evaluate their current needs and assess service offerings to find the right fit.

With deep experience in digital transformation, we can help identify the use cases where an implementation service is needed, areas where outsourcing will be of the greatest benefit and situations where a professional service offers the best value.

CDW also assists agencies in managing resource constraints and adapting to ever-changing technologies. Rather than just solving today’s problem, CDW can help develop a strategy that meets your immediate needs and offers the budgetary agility required in today’s technological landscape.

This article is part of FedTech’s CapITal blog series.