Homeland Security & Disaster Response
In the aftermath of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the private sector and government agencies alike have sought to address immediate threats while simultaneously developing coherent, long-term strategies for coping with man-made and natural disasters. Balancing these requirements has stretched government and private sector players to their limits. To meet the evolving security requirements of a shifting field of stakeholders, government customers are increasingly looking to commercial providers to offer innovative solutions, services, and business models. As challenges to the Department of Homeland Security persist, industry support remains critical across a range of increasingly challenging and sometime contradictory missions. These missions involve securing the nation’s borders and physical/virtual infrastructure, and include:
- Safeguarding cyber space while continuing to consolidate and effectively disseminate information, intelligence, and data
- Protecting critical infrastructure and supporting preparedness efforts administered by local, state and federal actors
- Securing the nation’s borders—air, land and sea—by prohibiting the entry of dangerous persons or goods, while at the same time facilitating billions of dollars of legitimate commerce and travel
- Improving risk management and communications between government stakeholders and the public, while avoiding unnecessary concern and over-response
The Obama Administration has made few immediate changes to the homeland security agenda, increasing the Department of Homeland Security’s budget marginally but implementing few significant policy shifts. Overall, discretionary spending is expected to continue to migrate away from products and platforms to services, such as IT integration, management support, and guard services, which are likely to dominate DHS spending over the next several years.
Pressured by stakeholders across the political and policy spectrum and driven by several very public stumbles, DHS and its major components will continue their efforts to enforce acquisition reform. The department’s focus will be on professionalizing its acquisition work force and centralizing purchasing functions at the department level and within major agencies such as the Coast Guard, which now manages a portfolio of nearly $30 billion, allocated primarily to the Deepwater project. Large new-start programs such as Deepwater or SBInet, in which contractors are tasked with a system integrator role, are less likely in the near term.
Avascent's Experience Serving the Homeland Security Sector
The Avascent Group’s deep expertise and sector-specific experience makes it particularly well-positioned to help industry address the challenges that it faces in support of the myriad of homeland security and disaster response tasks.
Firms seeking to support homeland security customers are challenged by the shifting nature of customer relationships, priorities, and requirements within the market. Avascent draws on extensive market knowledge to help clients understand the array of customer communities and market dynamics. Avascent’s unique approach emphasizes the development of a clear roadmap of the customer landscape, highlighting requirements from the broad policy level to needs defined by end-users in the field, and driving towards a deeper understanding of the size and attractiveness of relevant addressable markets.
Solutions providers must also navigate the wide range of economic, regulatory, legal and operational fault lines crisscrossing these markets. Avascent's consultants are armed with in-depth knowledge of the homeland security market, a result of lengthy experience working with industry leaders and specialized providers across the areas of border and transportation security, cyber security, critical infrastructure protection, NBC defense, and emergency preparedness and response.
Success in this market requires flexibility, knowledge, relationships, and a dedicated market-specific strategy. Avascent's customized, fact-based analysis and dedicated and pragmatic consulting support is targeted to provide clients with actionable advice and tailored recommendations.