Two years after combining the global, wide-area network capabilities of MCI Corp. with the local, access and professional services of Verizon, Verizon Federal has settled into its role as a managed network services provider to agencies across the federal government. The combined entity continues to build on each company’s previous success with major wins in those arenas, such as Networx and Washington Interagency Telecommunications System (WITS) 3.
Verizon comes in at No. 18 on this year’s Top 100 list with federal prime contract revenue of $1.3 billion.
Verizon Federal, an organization within Verizon Business dedicated to serving federal government customers, rounded out that expertise in 2007 with the acquisition of Cybertrust to create an enhanced Verizon Business Security Solutions practice.
“We manage more security devices in the world than anyone else, and that stability is very important when it comes to supporting the federal government,” said Susan Zeleniak, vice president of federal markets at Verizon Business.
Verizon’s newly expanded security capabilities have already helped the company win contracts such as the Veterans Affairs Department’s Identity Management award.
The WITS 3 contract, which has a four-year term with four one-year options, is worth as much as $1.8 billion. WITS 3 covers local telecom services and products for federal agencies in Washington and portions of the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Verizon Business held the previous WITS2001 contract.
Verizon Business was one of three prime contractors awarded the federal government’s Networx Universal and Networx Enterprise contracts, which authorized the company to compete for business from individual agencies.
Networx is among the largest federal communications contracts in history and represents a significant portion of Verizon Federal’s business. The company continues to aggressively pursue and win contracts under this vehicle.
“Our past performance was significant in this area,” Zeleniak said. “We serve just about every agency either through network services or professional services — and at a good price.”
“Verizon is basically the 800-pound gorilla,” said Jerry Edgerton, who retired as president of Verizon Federal and is now chief executive officer at Command Information, a consulting firm. “They have the power of incumbency, and that goes a long way,” Edgerton said. “However, staying power creates a degree of inertia and limits flexibility to be creative, and this time now is all about creativity, being first to market and taking advantage of having everything connected to the network. That is where their limitation will be.”
Federal agencies account for about half of Verizon’s government business and, together with state and local government work, constitutes about 20 percent of Verizon Communications’ revenues.
The bundling of services is helping agencies stay on budget, and newly developed tools to provide dashboard visibility into network performance enable agencies to confidently outsource network management and security without loss of control.
“Security and mobility will be the biggest challenges” for agencies, Zeleniak added. “Security is so important to every agency now, whether for identity management or to safeguard personal information. Everything we do, we approach with the question, ‘What about security?’”
