Despite the high barrier to entry in serving the military and intelligence agencies of the U.S. federal government, a three year-old start-up is doing quite well. Markon, which began operations in 2007, almost doubled its revenue and headcount in 2009 and is on pace for significant growth in 2010. “We’re positioned really well. We’ve set ourselves up well to be cost competitive. And we think we’re also better than the next guy,” says President Matthew Dean.
The firm’s positioning is, in part, a result of a desire to diversify across the federal government space. The firm is currently serving six different federal agencies. And the majority of the work is still “relatively small contracts, foot-in-the-door work,” Dean says.
The firm may be small, but it is comprised of consultants with long histories serving the public sector. The firm is made of consultants that have worked for much larger public sector consulting firms, as well as professionals who have worked inside the agencies they are now supporting. Dean is a former BearingPoint consultant. Others at the firm previously worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM or are former military or intelligence officers. “It’s a pretty good mix,” he says.
That level of experience has allowed them to have the credibility to run projects with only minimal government management oversight. In many cases, “our guys are running a team that includes government staff. What we’ve found is that many of these government agencies are missing the talent at the project management level to oversee a specific operational change. Our guys understand the discipline of management consulting and the importance of keeping to schedules and running teams,” he says.
Because of his firm’s size, Dean says he can drive a good profit by leading a project, not necessarily staffing the full team. “Bigger companies would prefer they bring in their own team of ten people to execute. We’re cost competitive because we’re only requiring the client hire one person—not 10.”
These foot-in-the-door projects are leading to bigger and bigger engagements. “We’re taking a long-term perspective because we’re more interested in building relationships with long-term opportunities. We’ve got no problem cashing in those relationship chips later this year or next. Our long-term goals are more important than the size of our organization today,” he says.
It has only been a few years, but the small projects are already “starting to pay dividends,” he says. “Instead of being hired for two to three person teams, now they’re hiring us for five to seven person teams. And now we’re controlling teams of sub-contractors.” He adds, “That’s what makes me so optimistic about 2010. I have no problem going out and getting new opportunities.”
For example, the firm was recently part of a winning bid for a U.S. Navy contract to provide support services for weapon systems acquisitions. The so-called SeaPort-e contract covers: modeling, simulation and analysis support, acquisitions logistics support, supply and provisioning support, training and programming support, as well as functional and administration support.
Other projects have focused on facilities project management as well as acquisition and logistics management. Not bad for a consulting firm that didn’t exist a few years ago.
—Jess Scheer<< Previous Lenati 2010 Small Jewels RAS & Associates Next >>
