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1. What was your vision for IIa when you started the company almost 19 years ago, and how and why has it changed over the years?

I started IIa as a one-person consultant company.  The goal of the company was to advise federal organizations on how to more effectively manage scientific and technical information.  As a result of that consulting work, one of my clients wanted to hire two more senior information experts to help develop a federal STI program she had just taken over.  Until that day, nobody worked for IIa that needed benefits or for whom IIa was the sole support of their family.  At this point, to think about attracting the right people, I had to commit to putting in benefits and an infrastructure for longer term benefits for these and future employees.  The nature of the business changed from consultants to a company with employees.  We state our vision as managing information as a strategic resource. 

During the 1990s, things began to change further—both with the advances in information technology and the success of IIa in winning increasingly larger, more complex projects.  Information technology and information content became one and the fully digital lifecycle of information became a reality.  We expanded our vision to incorporate also being a technology company.

During our last vision process, we looked at the various things we do and decided to stay with our roots, but to live in the new technology world.  So we have progressed from managing information as a strategic resource to creating value from the world’s information.  Throughout the years, we have held fast to the importance of content, but have added the dimensions of technological enablement and providing information for use.  Our purpose has continued to evolve through the years to keep pace with the world.

2. I often get asked, what does IIa do?  I have been working here for a few years and know we do many things, but I have a hard time describing it concisely.  Can you give me a one-sentence answer to “What does IIa do?”

It really is too hard to describe in one sentence.  But if you think about Google and how it delivers information to your fingertips, they identify information, “acquire” it, manage it, and provide it for use.  Similarly, IIa helps different user groups obtain, manage, and use selected kinds of information.  All of our jobs tie into that.  Think about how your specific job or project fits into this “identify, acquire, manage, and make information available for use” scenario.  Can you find your fit?

3. What sets IIa apart from similar companies?

Ia is different from other companies in that we work at the intersection of three critical elements of information management.  Our toolkit includes policy, technology, and content (with subject matter expertise).  Most companies work with only one or  two of these elements.  It is rare for a company to work in all three areas, but IIa does.

4. What is the financial health of the company? 

No company wins 100% of the things they bid on.  There are lots of factors involved.  But the bottom line is that our sales (revenues) will be higher this year than last year.  We are a profitable company.  We are debt-free except for the line of credit we maintain to balance cash flow against when the government pays us.  We are an $18 million company and continue at that level.  What is changing is that in the government contracting world, we have grown too big to bid on some of the things we used to bid on.  But our executive team is very busy laying out and implementing strategies for the company’s continued growth.  If you asked our banker today, he’d tell you we are terrific.  Stay tuned.  We hope to have some good announcements to make to you very soon.

5. What are the three most significant contributions that IIa employees could make to help IIa as a company reach its strategic goals?

IIa’s strategic goals are growth, profitability, and customer satisfaction.  Every employee can contribute to reaching these goals by actively contributing to the
company’s mission by:

• Being dedicated to the mission of the client or project
• Working both hard and smart
• Working as a team

Apart from these big picture points, there are some practical things every employee can do to help us reach our goals.  Here are three:

• Learn about IIa so that you can talk about who we are and how good we are.
• Take the word about IIa into your communities.  You never know when you might encounter someone who is a potential employee or a potential client.
• Constantly upgrade your personal skills and tools so you can suggest innovations.

6. From a perspective of winning new contracts, is the company more interested in winning projects that have the potential for (1) above-average revenue with mediocre profit % or (2) mediocre revenue with above-average profit %?

I talked about our strategic goals the previous answer.  The goals are all interrelated and can’t be considered separately.  Whether we are optimizing profit or optimizing growth depends on how any particular project fits into our broader strategic plan.  It’s never a clear-cut “only profit” or “only growth.” If we want to build a new business area (like open-source intelligence), we might easily take less profit to build qualifications.

Another aspect to think about is that if you take the multiplier of percent profit times total revenue, you get absolute profit.  So think about a small contract with a high profit margin versus a large contract with a lower profit margin.  The small contract for $100,000 with 10% profit would net us $10,000 in profit.  But a large contract worth one million dollars at 5% profit would net us $50,000 profit.

7. Rumors are that the Air Force is planning to close an “x” number of libraries in certain numbers of installation.  How will that affect IIa in the future?

To our knowledge, there is no overarching plan to close Air Force libraries.  Some libraries are closing due to the base closing initiative (BRAC.)  It is also true that some libraries are going NAF.  In most cases, IIa cannot be the prime bidder on small libraries because we have outgrown the small business definition for these bids.

All libraries are evolving to integrate electronic services into traditional services, and with that there are changes that affect their requirements.  As part of our mission to “add value to information,” we will continue to assess the best ways to provide services and, hopefully, provide services that meet the needs of the Air Force and other agencies for libraries and their information management requirements.  One of our strategies is to be in base operations, as noted in the following answer.

8a. In the future, what kind of business is IIa going to be in? After all, if we had won ORO-IT, it seems we would have become primarily an IT support company...are we still headed in that direction? Or will the nature of our next big contract win determine the primary business IIa wants to be in? (Note:  answer included with next question)

8b. Related question:  What new domestic or global markets, industries/industry niches or other areas would IIa like to enter and provide manpower or expertise?  How can those of us with access to a wide variety of information sources help with these initiatives?

These two are relatively similar questions that I’ll address together.  We have identified four areas for growth:

• Intelligence, and particularly open source work (medical, cultural, nonproliferation)
• Information technology
• Scientific informatics, including the fields of environment (biodiversity) and nanotechnology
• Base operations, which includes bundling our traditional core competencies (libraries, records, graphics, conference planning, personnel management systems, administrative and training services, etc.) to help run large operations like Air Force bases or national laboratories.

How can folks with information resources help with these initiatives?  If you have expertise or know people in these areas, potential employees or potential clients, please let us know.  The kinds of information we need to know are:

• Where there is money for work in these areas
• Where there are requirements for help
• Technical information about these areas of work
• Where there are people who are potential employees in these areas

(Note:  Send information about potential clients to Pat Powell, Business Development.  Send information about potential employees to Martha Wallus, Human Resources.)

ASK BONNIE continues:  Do you have a question about strategy that Bonnie hasn’t answered yet?  Send it to “Ask Bonnie” at (askbonnie@iiaweb.com). 

You can also ASK MANAGEMENT:  Do you want to ask a question about operational issues?  Send that question to “Ask Management” at (askmanagement@iiaweb.com).  Watch for your answers in the next issue of InfoEdge.