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Northstrat Incorporated |
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June 19, 2017 Issue |
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CEOCFO MAGAZINE |
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Software and Systems Engineers providing Custom Software Applications, IT Solutions and Modernization of Legacy Systems for US Government Agencies and their Prime Contract Partners |
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President
Northstrat Incorporated
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – June 19, 2017
CEOCFO: Mr. Boyd, what is the idea behind Northstrat today? Mr. Boyd: The idea behind Northstrat is to provide excellent quality service to our customers. Our customers range from direct US government agencies to prime contractor partners. We also strive to be a great teammate to help them succeed in their mission.
CEOCFO: What types of services are you providing? Mr. Boyd: A significant portion of our business is custom software development services. In addition, we provide system engineering and we excel as domain experts in the intelligence community. We also have a large presence and capability providing business intelligence, knowledge management and are beginning to perform in the area of analytics.
Mr. Boyd: One of the things that I like to bring to a program that we are developing is people that have operations experience; people that have been executing as operators or analysts or collecting intelligence or analyzing intelligence, and bringing them to the teams that are developing products. By bringing people that have operations experience, I think it brings a real desire to get it done and deliver something that works well for the working operator out there.
CEOCFO: How have you learned to navigate some of the challenges working with the government? Mr. Boyd: Patience. Primarily you have to understand the mission. That is, from the business aspect of the mission, and then you have to be prepared and willing to put in the work behind the scenes to do what it takes to get the contract mechanism in place. When we are a subcontractor to a prime, what we say and practice is that we want to be good teammates and good partners. That means that we provide great quality people and we are committed to the mission that we are supporting at the project level. But also, in the back office, we want to be extremely efficient and easy to work with. For example, when we send an invoice, it is correct the first time and there are not any revisions or rejections of the invoices that we send. Be timely when it comes to submitting proposals, whether its data calls or RFPs.
CEOCFO: Are you happy with the mix between government and commercial or working towards a change? Mr. Boyd: We are happy with being completely committed to government work. No, we are not working toward commercial business, we are focused completely in the government intelligence community.
CEOCFO: Is there anything you need to do differently with the whole atmosphere surrounding intelligence?
Mr. Boyd:
I do not think any of the lack of trust of the IC has trickled down to the
Northstrat level. We are a small business in the community. We work at a
tactical level, executing programs to build systems that operators and
analysts can use. We do not really operate at the strategic level where I
think a lot of that trust and questioning has come into play. CEOCFO: You mentioned moving into analytics. What are you looking at doing and why now? Mr. Boyd: Now, because it is a natural extension of the business intelligence that we have been doing for a decade. Business intelligence is about collecting data and visualizing it through dashboards or other means. The next logical step from there is what you can analyze to predict what the next path is going to be whether it is man power, financial or mission related things. To me our move toward providing analytics is logical because I see it as an extension of our business intelligence services.
CEOCFO: How do you decide what projects to consider? Mr. Boyd: We have to really focus on the things that are either very similar to the expertise that we already hold in house or seek opportunities that are with customers that we already know really well where we can extend our current capability. I think we either have to know the customer or know the business really well to be considered as a real competitor for new projects.
CEOCFO: Are you able to call on outside people, should there be a need or should you win a couple projects at the same time that require immediate attention? Mr. Boyd: For the past year we have been focusing on building a list of partners that we would be comfortable working with in a prime-sub relationship. We are looking for partners on both sides of that fence and we have been doing that now with significant concentration for the last year or so. This is an area we are trying to strengthen so that when we win that piece of work where we need some help, we already have some trusted partners available to us.
CEOCFO: What, if anything, has changed in your strategy and approach over time? Mr. Boyd: I think the strategy has become more focused than it was initially when we were really young. When we started out in 2006, I think we were a little more scattered, just looking for any real opportunity. We did not really care where it came from. I think now that we have grown and matured, we are more selective in the things that we pursue and the things that we spend time developing or capturing as opportunities.
CEOCFO: Are there many differences depending on what agencies you are working with or is it really more what the project is, or a little of both? Mr. Boyd: I think it is a little of both. I think the project is important because you have to have past performance and have to be able to prove the ability to satisfy their requirements and needs. I think different agencies do have different cultures, so you have to be cognizant of what that culture is and how to respond to something because they each have their own kinds of expectations on how they want us to perform in their space.
CEOCFO: How do you help bring an agency into 2017 technology? Mr. Boyd: It can be more difficult than it should be, just from my personal experience of building a few systems that we thought were on the borderline between evolutionary and revolutionary. In one example, we significantly modernized information and its display, but we still faced a significance hurdle in getting operations personnel to adopt using it over the old system that they were comfortable with. As a developer, one has to be cognizant of the human culture and frankly, stubbornness to adopt something new. The most successful programs work with the user community and the acquisition organization simultaneously, then it is on us as the developers to develop something that people are interested in and willing to adopt.
CEOCFO: Are there particular types of projects you would like to work on, given a choice? Mr. Boyd: I think the people that we have hired at Northstrat prefer to work on things that can deliver early and often. I think those are more rewarding for our developers. Getting something in the hands of the users, even if it is not the 100% product right away, are projects we want to work on.
CEOCFO: How is business? Mr. Boyd: Business is pretty good. We went through a period over the last couple of years where it was stagnant, but recently in the last six to nine months, our business development activities have paid off and some of those long lead items are actually happening and we have been growing. This year, so far, we have increased our staff number by 33%.
Mr. Boyd: What’s ahead is looking for more opportunities, chasing down the ones that we have leads on today, and performing really well on the work we are doing. I speak to the company often and one of my mantras is to do well at what you are doing now, help your customer succeed and they will want you to continue helping them with their next problem. The future is much like the past, just doing a great job and the company back office is going to work to develop new business and bring new work to us. |
“A significant portion of our business is custom software development services. In addition, we provide system engineering and we excel as domain experts in the intelligence community. We also have a large presence and capability providing business intelligence, knowledge management and are beginning to perform in the area of analytics.”- Ricky J. Boyd
Northstrat Incorporated
Contact: Ricky J. Boyd 540-751-1972 x101
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IT Solutions Government, Northstrat Incorporated, Information Technology for Government Public Sector, Ricky J. Boyd, Software and Systems Engineers providing Custom Software Applications, IT Solutions and Modernization of Legacy Systems for US Government Agencies and their Prime Contract Partners, CEO Interviews 2017, Government Services, Software, system engineering, microstrategy BI, mission management systems, strategy management systems, modernization of legacy systems, Information Technology, IT solutions to US Government agencies in the Intelligence, Defense, and Law Enforcement communities, Northstrat Incorporated Press Releases, News |
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Ricky
J. Boyd