Unisys Federal Systems in for accelerated growth, says president Greg Baroni
May 16th, 2008 by Lisa Singh
Start your engines. This is the year of accelerated “organic” growth for Unisys Federal Systems, says Greg Baroni. Baroni is a senior vice president of the corporation and has served as an officer since 2004. He also serves as president of Federal Systems, which delivers a broad range of services and solutions ranging from consulting and systems integration to managed services and outsourcing. In the following Q&A, Baroni talks about recent successes — his organization saw orders grow nearly 20 percent this past quarter — and what it takes to build a winning culture.
Where do you spend a lot of time?
Greg Baroni: The Transportation Security Administration Information Technology Infrastructure Program competition consumes a lot of my time; making sure we stay front and center with successful continued service to TSA. Other than that, I’m focused on keeping my team energized for our ongoing change journey — becoming more services-focused and continually increasing the value we bring to our clients. I also spend a lot of time positioning Unisys to respond to the inevitable transition we’ll face as we go from one administration to the next and tracking some of the emerging technology trends like security convergence and information sharing.
What is your vision for your organization?
Greg Baroni: My vision for the federal side is to become one of the top ten federal government contractors. I’m saying “federal side,” because I have two businesses. I have the Unisys U.S. federal business, and I also have the Medicaid claims processing business we perform for several states. In regard to the latter, we hold contracts for that business in Louisiana, New Jersey and West Virginia, and we recently won Idaho and just signed our contract with Maine. That business has been growing very rapidly for us, primarily because we have a strong differentiator — a very flexible modern technology solution called Heath PAS.
On the federal side you talk about the “10 x 10” strategy. What is that?
Greg Baroni: It’s our strategy to place Unisys among the top 10 federal government technology contractors by the end of 2010. We’ve made good progress laying the foundation for it. We are about 4,000 people, and the game plan for us is to grow up to about 10,000 people and hit $2 billion in revenue by the end of 2010. I also expect that you will see my leadership team becoming more visible and playing an instrumental role in shaping the future of this market, as well as, finding ways to contribute back to this community.
What is your area of interest in M&A as part of your 10×10 strategy?
Greg Baroni: M&A is a critical part of our 10×10 strategy. But what we have done is laid out a journey and roadmap to realize our vision for 10×10. Last year, we laid the foundation and moved toward improved profitability to give us the operating cash flow needed to make the necessary investments in winning our critical recompetes and accelerating organic growth. As we look to 2009 and beyond, acquisitions will play a critical role in addressing our gaps or helping us to capitalize on some emerging trends.
What was your focus last year and what do you have planned for this year?
Greg Baroni: Our focus last year was really on completing the final chapter on what we call “Foundations for Growth,” which entailed a complete overhaul of our back office infrastructure culminating with the implementation of the Deltek suite of enterprise application software. This year it’s all about stoking the engine for organic growth. We’ve reverse engineered our biggest wins over the past few years and significantly strengthened our sales processes to improve our win rates, especially around the larger pursuits. We are out there with strong sales leaders and restructuring ourselves to improve our win rates around the large mega deals. We have strengthened our solution capabilities to capitalize on both emerging trends and those that are core business to us. All of these activities will strengthen our organic growth capabilities.
Wasn’t your growth platform designed potentially for buying companies?
Greg Baroni: That is what we plan to do next year in 2009. We are already in the process of screening a number of potential acquisition candidates. But as I said earlier, this year is about making sure we fire up the engine of organic growth. We are strengthening our people, processes and technologies that support that focus this year.
What is your view of the cyber security initiative at DHS?
Greg Baroni: Cyber security is a critical part of our strategy. The cyber security initiative is not unique to DHS; it actually cuts across all the intelligence agencies as well as DoD. We are zeroing in on cyber security and looking at where the real opportunities will be, what solutions will be most relevant, what channels we can use to win those opportunities and then capturing them. That is essentially what we are doing right now.
What do you think your biggest challenge in business is today?
Greg Baroni: I always start with people. I think a leader fundamentally has a responsibility year in and year out to field the strongest team, ensure they are playing their best positions and sometimes juggling that lineup to get maximum performance. In this highly competitive market, getting the best and the brightest is probably my biggest challenge.
How do you describe the culture these days in Unisys Federal Systems?
Greg Baroni: We are building a winning culture. While there is a lot of excitement around the aspirations of Unisys Federal Systems, there is also caution due to the economy and the other sectors the company serves. Still, our spirits are buoyed as we saw orders grow nearly 20 percent this past quarter driven by a number of big wins which put some credibility and momentum around our aspiration of accelerating our organic growth engine.
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