Mentoring Agreement Gives SAIC, SeKON Bigger Footprint in Healthcare Market

A seven-year relationship between SAIC and SeKON has progressed into a formal mentor-protégé relationship. Based on long-term work with SeKON, primarily on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracts, SAIC invited SeKON to become a protégé, jointly developed a mentor-protégé agreement, and received formal HHS approval in September 2011.

SAIC will provide support and guidance to help SeKON compete for business in the federal healthcare sector, with a particular focus on business development and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®) appraisal.

HHS Mentor-Protégé Program

"HHS is a major customer and when the HHS Mentor-Protégé Program was announced, we knew participation would be an important part of our business strategy," noted Steve Comber, general manager of SAIC's Health Solutions Business Unit. "We are pleased to continue and strengthen our relationship with SeKON through this important program."

To select protégés, SAIC management evaluated existing teammates on HHS contracts and compared them against SAIC corporate guidelines for protégés.

"Whether big or small, we're all being asked to help the government focus on what's most important and to reassess customers' needs and what process improvements can meet those needs."

"SeKON ranked at the top of our list," said Cindy Kendall, an SAIC vice president and small business advocate for the company. "We have had a successful long-term relationship and find SeKON personnel to be professional, experienced, and collaborative."

In addition, Kendall noted that SeKON's excellent business relationships across HHS and other agencies — in areas that both complement and augment SAIC's capabilities — make them a valuable team member. "From a technical view, SeKON has compatible skill sets, such as service desk support services as well as consulting expertise in strategic human capital and financial management IT services, that augment SAIC's skills," Kendall said.

Extra Support to Compete for New Business

Herndon, Va.-based SeKON is a woman-owned small business that provides technology and business consulting services primarily to the federal healthcare market. Angela Wilson founded SeKON in 1996, focused mainly on implementing back-office systems for government organizations. Over the next few years, SeKON's business grew to focus more on strategic consulting for implementation of HR and financial management systems.

"SeKON's real expertise, where we add value, is in providing strategic advisory services around those systems: planning, build-outs, 2020 strategic plans, governance of environments, assessing and modernizing, and making recommendations on emerging technologies," Wilson said.

SeKON also has solid relationships and a history of support for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), both in HHS, and Wilson sees this mentor-protégé relationship as a way to expand their reach in current and new programs.

Teaming with SAIC, with its business infrastructure, expansive reach, and excellent reputation, helps supplement SeKON's offerings and ability to support worldwide requirements.

"A majority of small business engagement is garnered through relationships, and we’ve been very successful at developing those," she noted.

Still, she acknowledged, it can hard to be a small fish in a big pond. Teaming with SAIC, with its business infrastructure, expansive reach, and excellent reputation, helps supplement SeKON's offerings and ability to support worldwide requirements.

Ideal Time for Mentoring

"This is a very strategic time for mentor-protégé relationships in the healthcare industry," Wilson said. "Since the government is transforming many of its business processes, everyone has to adjust, including contractors. Whether big or small, we're all being asked to help the government focus on what's most important and to reassess customers' needs and what process improvements can meet those needs."

This, she asserted, presents collaboration points where small business, big business, and government can work together. The mentor-protégé relationship gives her small business an extra advantage in leveraging such collaborative opportunities.

A True Role Model

CMMI is one of the most intensive areas of mentoring under this agreement, according to Kendall. One of the company's senior CMMI professionals, Dawn Wood, is mentoring SeKON as they prepare for CMMI appraisal, and SAIC will fund the lead assessor for the CMMI training and the formal appraisal.

Although SeKON has been on the CMMI track for many years, they haven't had the resources to put the processes in place on their own, according to Wilson. SAIC is helping them move forward through both training and demonstrating for SeKON how CMMI works operationally in a big organization.

"Seeing something in action and being able to model it is a true definition of mentoring. CMMI certification is extremely complex; if it were as easy as reading a manual and then following the instructions, all companies would be doing it."

"Seeing something in action and being able to model it is a true definition of mentoring," Wilson said. "CMMI certification is extremely complex; if it were as easy as reading a manual and then following the instructions, all companies would be doing it."

She noted that SeKON has benefitted from seeing how CMMI works operationally at SAIC, and then exploring ways to scale it back and implement it within a smaller company.

SAIC is also providing mentoring support in other areas:

• The SAIC HHS account manager will be working closely with SeKON on business development activities, focusing on HHS as well as within SAIC.
• An SAIC contracts director will be addressing a variety of administrative advice and mentoring to advance SeKON's back-office functions.
• Senior members of the SAIC corporate security team will provide mentoring in the importance and development of a modern and robust security program.

Value-Added Relationship

Through collaboration and complementary skillsets and management styles, SAIC and SeKON have established a track record of support for federal healthcare agencies. The formal mentor-protégé agreement gives extra definition to the relationship, allowing the two companies to work even more collaboratively in identifying and pursuing opportunities, as well as helping SeKON develop its capabilities and staff.

"The mentoring process is helpful in identifying where we bring value and how we can collaborate to meet the customers' evolving requirements," said Wilson, adding that being able to learn from an organization like SAIC, which has such a big footprint in the federal healthcare arena, can help her small business make inroads and navigate into markets to find new opportunities.

The bottom line is that this mentor-protégé agreement is an added plus in an already positive relationship. Kendall summed up the reason for this teaming by saying: "Together, SAIC and SeKON have the ability to pursue and win new business."

CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.