6th European Conference - Academic Conferences

Edwin Leigh Armistead and Thomas Murphy
From the 2010 set of data, we sorted by company name and counted the number of contracts in the
award state (awarded) to each company. Table 3 shows that only 29 out of 341 companies won more
than two awards, and only eight companies won more than 10 awards out of the data reviewed in this
research.
Table 3: Frequency of awarded number of contracts as of september 2010
Awards 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 ≥ 10
# of Companies 242 49 7 7 4 2 1 8
Success of the Awardees could be measured several ways, total number of contracts awarded, total
dollar value of contracts awarded, award $$ per employee, etc. We use a simple measure important
to academic researchers, the total number of contracts, since it is a straightforward measure of their
best sources of opportunities. Using the data on awarded contracts from the INPUT database we
found that the eight corporations that won 10 or greater IO contracts in Table 3 included the following:
Northrop Grumman Corporation 41
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) 40
General Dynamics Corporation 20
BAE Systems PLC 19
Lockheed Martin Corporation 19
Booz Allen Hamilton 15
CACI International Inc 15
L-3 Communications Inc 10
This information shows that as IA and IO have matured in the Federal and DoD marketplace, the
competition appears to be centering more and more on the same key players. Knowing the players
who have won the most contracts suggests strategies for entering the fray.
4. Strategies for entering the fray
The academic researcher must deliver at least best practice and more importantly, unique or worldclass
theories, models, products or services to the contract team in order to be successful. This
applies to individual contributions as well as for the products and services they are developing. After
satisfying these basic requirements for success, there are several key strategies for entering the fray
and selecting what aspect of IO, IW or Cyber to work on. Key strategies laid out in our previous paper
in 2007, centered on the following strategies:
Allying Oneself with the Leading Contenders
Developing a Front Runner
Striking out on your Own
In light of the updated contract information and current international situation, in the author’s opinion,
the new key strategies are as follows:
Develop strong relationships with key individuals of those corporations that are consistently
winning IO and IW contracts
Focus on IO/IW areas that have the most contracts (IA and Cyber Security)
Stay aligned with growing areas of interest in the community (e.g. Strategic Communications)
4.1 Developing strong relationships
The eight companies listed earlier have won about 25% of the total IO and IW contracts from our
research data, and there is a good reason for that. IO and IW, like any endeavor, require a certain
amount of expertise in the form of personnel, capabilities and past performance. Government
contracting officers and their technical representatives are, in general, conservative and will often go
with the “tried and true” company that has performed these duties in the past. A good example is
Northrop Grumman who ran the IO Center of Excellence for the Army at Ft Belvoir for an extended
period and were recently also awarded the contract to run the IO Center for the US Marine Corps.
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