Ten CFOs to Watch in 2010: Noel Samuel, Dell Perot
Present: Vice President Finance, Dell Perot Systems Government Services
Career highlights: Background spans information technology, business development, and mergers and acquisitions. Previously supported government services unit within the legacy Perot Systems’ M&A team.
Personal: Samuel enjoys international travel. “I enjoy travel where it not only instantly transports you to another world but also challenges your ability to communicate,” he says.
2010 Tips:
- Ensure lean cost structure. “You want to make sure that your shared services team is as lean as it can be relative to the direct labor. You can make market margins a possibility as long as you make sure that ratio is in check.”
- Foster multilayered understanding. “That goes back to customer intimacy. We want to make sure we understand at the site level, as well as at the CIO level, the value drivers and the purchasing needs of the organization.”
- Offer full spectrum solutions. “One of the things that makes Dell Perot Systems powerful is we do provide true end-to-end solutions. This is where the market is going, and this is where we feel our competitive advantage is.”
Full Interview:
ExecutiveBiz: First came Perot Systems. Now Dell Perot Systems is on the map. What does the integration mean for your customers?
Noel Samuel: The integration represents a great opportunity for us to bring forth capabilities we didn’t have before within the legacy Perot Systems. One of the terms we’ve used internally as we’ve looked at this integration is “Together. With purpose.” You’ll see an energized team providing a full range of IT services. That includes hardware, in conjunction with the services that legacy Perot Systems had been providing across the federal government. Whether you’re a civilian agency, DHS, Intel or DOD, we aim to provide solutions, which have been refined in the commercial marketplace, in an end-to-end fashion. This is literally one stop shopping, where we have a lot of capability in-house that we can bring to the forefront for our customers.
ExecutiveBiz: You’ve been busy on other fronts like recompetes. Where do your efforts stand?
Noel Samuel: I’m very pleased with our level of success this past year, particularly with recompetes. We had a number of recompetes within the civilian and DOD lines of business, including a CDC win earlier in the year. We expanded our Department of Transportation line of business. Rock Island Army Arsenal was a key recompete win, as was DTMO (Defense Travel Management Office). This is where I think we’ve brought our commercial best practices to produce results for our customers. We’ve increased profitability year on year as well, which is obviously tough in this economic climate. We’ve implemented cost controls, making sure we have a fairly lean infrastructure. In addition, we have some new growth and new contracts that we have to look forward to in 2010.
ExecutiveBiz: In the midst of those wins, what key challenges have you been navigating?
Noel Samuel: One challenge was making sure we stayed ahead of the curve in terms of getting on top of vehicles that we won but that were under protest. One example of that is the Alliant vehicle for GSA, a contract with a $50 billion ceiling . We were pleased with the resolution of the protest, which enabled us to actively pursue certain identified opportunities that came out.
ExecutiveBiz: What can we expect from Dell Perot Systems in 2010?
Noel Samuel: The combination of the legacy Dell federal business and the legacy Perot Systems Government Services business makes us a very strong organization. We understand the layers of technology needed to go beyond having a mainframe, like having complete data center operations in conjunction with network engineering, applications development, consulting, and business process outsourcing. We’ve got the hardware and applications know-how, and now we have the ability to produce hardware, notebooks and other emerging technologies. You will continue to see more about our new range of capabilities. We are very excited about the prospects in the federal space for 2010 and beyond.
Posted by Staff Writer
on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010. Filed under Executive Spotlight.
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