Industry Talks

Strategic Expansion with Government Contracting

Interview with Srini Bayireddy, CEO of Navitas, on breaking into federal contracting from commercial and building a thriving business in the public sector while maintaining commercial clients.

Luke Nascimento

Co-Founder / CEO

Srini Bayireddy

This week I sat down with Srini Bayireddy, the founder and CEO of Navitas, a Virginia-based technology consulting company. Srini shared valuable insights on breaking into federal contracting from commercial and building a thriving business in the public sector while maintaining commercial clients. This blog post explores the strategies, challenges, and lessons learned from his journey.

The Path to Federal Contracting

Navitas began primarily as a commercial services provider but strategically shifted its focus to federal work over several years. Today, federal contracts comprise 80% of their business, with the remaining 20% split between state, local, and commercial work. Srini emphasized the importance of maintaining a presence in both sectors, as this diversification provides stability and a unique value proposition.

Key factors that drove the federal transition included:

  • Desire to support meaningful mission-driven work
  • Longer contract durations providing stability (often 3-5 years)
  • Ability to leverage commercial experience as a differentiator in the federal space
  • Potential for larger contract values in the federal market

Overcoming Initial Hurdles

Breaking into the federal contracting space without extensive past performance posed significant challenges. To overcome this, Navitas employed a three-pronged approach:

  • Partnering with large primes: Navitas approached major contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton, Mantech, and CGI, offering specialized capabilities for core/tech challenges. This strategy provided exposure to larger opportunities and decision-makers.
  • Teaming with similar-sized companies: Collaborating with peers allowed Navitas to gain valuable proposal experience and understand the intricacies of federal contracting processes.
  • Pursuing smaller prime opportunities independently: This approach enabled Navitas to build its own past performance and develop direct relationships with federal clients.

Bayireddy noted it took around 2 years of persistent effort before winning their first major prime contract - a multi-cloud security engineering project with USCIS in 2019. This win provided significant visibility and credibility, leading to many more opportunities.

Building Internal Capabilities

As Srini led Navitas into the federal contracting arena, he realized that developing robust capabilities required strategic internal changes. Drawing from his experience at Fannie Mae and USCIS, Srini implemented several key strategies:

  • Employee Segmentation: Srini took Navitas' employee base and segmented them by competencies. He explained he grouped staff based on skills like Java development, cloud engineering, and ERP specialization, aligning the workforce with targeted contract areas.
  • The "Triple Threat" Model: Srini introduced a unique approach where he vertical integrated contracting efforts. The same team handles opportunity identification, proposal writing, and project delivery. He noted, "this eliminates communication gaps between sales promises and actual delivery."
  • Cross-Sector Pollination: To maintain energy and fresh perspectives, Srini encouraged rotation between commercial and federal teams.
  • Streamlined Proposal Development: He implemented a system of reusable content libraries and defined processes to make proposal creation more efficient.
  • Focused Core Capabilities: Rather than trying to do everything, Srini narrowed Navitas' focus to a few key areas of expertise.

By implementing these strategies, Srini positioned Navitas to effectively compete in the federal space while leveraging their commercial experience and maintaining their innovative edge. Srini emphasized the importance of preparing for scale, noting that as the company grew, they needed to evolve their processes and organizational structure to handle larger contracts and teams.

Maintaining Motivation in Long Sales Cycles

Federal contracting often involves much longer sales cycles compared to commercial work. To keep business development teams motivated, Navitas:

  • Rotates staff between federal, state, and local opportunities
  • Encourages cross-pollination of ideas and best practices between sectors
  • Focuses on diverse agencies and mission areas to maintain interest and challenge

Leveraging Technology and Innovation

Towards the end of our conversation, we touched on the inevitable, AI. Bayireddy sees artificial intelligence and machine learning as important emerging trends in federal contracting, though still in early stages for most agencies. Navitas is actively involved in AI/ML projects, particularly in areas like immigration, customs and border protection.

Regarding procurement automation, he believes these technologies show promise but are still maturing. He emphasized that domain expertise and access to quality data will be critical differentiators for companies looking to leverage AI in the federal space.

Advice for Aspiring Federal Contractors

For companies considering entering the federal market, the key takeaways are:

  • Leverage your unique strengths and commercial experience
  • Be prepared for longer sales cycles and invest in relationship-building
  • Develop specialized federal business processes and capabilities over time
  • Focus on specific agencies or capability areas rather than trying to cover the entire market
  • Consider a gradual transition, maintaining commercial work as you build federal expertise
  • Invest in understanding the unique aspects of federal contracting, including regulations and proposal processes

While the journey from commercial to federal contracting presents challenges, companies like Navitas demonstrate that with patience, strategic planning, and a willingness to adapt, it's possible to build a thriving business in the government sector. The key lies in leveraging your strengths, understanding the unique aspects of federal work, and continuously evolving your capabilities to meet the complex needs of government clients.

A Larger Mission

Srini told me the transition to federal contracting was driven by a deeper mission. "Solving problems for the federal government is much more gratifying as our mission," Srini explains. This sense of purpose energizes the entire team, as they tackle complex challenges in cybersecurity, AI/ML, and application modernization for federal agencies.

But Navitas' commitment extends beyond government contracts. The company actively engages in community development, supporting initiatives from youth education to entrepreneurship. "We take responsibility for creating and sustaining environments that allow us to flourish as individuals and as a community," Srini states.

This dual focus - serving federal missions and investing in communities - creates a powerful synergy. Navitas contributes to national goals while making a tangible local impact. By aligning business goals with broader societal needs, Srini has fostered an environment where the whole of Navitas is contributing to something larger than themselves. Navitas is not just a technology company, but a catalyst for positive change locally and nationally.