Deloitte deepens federal presence

Deloitte Consulting is expanding its presence in the Washington, D.C., area to meet the growing needs of federal clients.

Last summer, the company announced it was re-entering the federal government market after 15 years of inactivity. Now, Deloitte Consulting has signed a new lease for space in Reston, Va., and that property will be the site of its public-sector operations for the federal market, said Bob Campbell, global senior partner and director of the U.S. federal government practice.

The office will house consulting and business development operations, as well as the program management office (PMO) for the federal practice.

The PMO is jointly operated by Deloitte Consulting and its affiliate firm, Deloitte & Touche. The two firms will work together with the PMO to provide consulting, tax services and assurance and advisory to federal clients.

Deloitte Consulting's public-sector practice focuses on providing the state, local and federal markets services in e-government, technology, systems integration, business process re-engineering, change leadership and e-learning.

"We've really been building the practice from ground zero, but Deloitte & Touche has relationships with several agencies, which has been helpful, and we have partnerships with system integrators and [enterprise resource planning] firms, so we've been leveraging those relationships," Campbell said.

Deloitte Consulting has been doing work for a number of federal agencies in its first year back, including the Naval Supply Systems Command, the Defense Logistics Agency and the Internal Revenue Service.

"I didn't imagine, 12 months [after re-entering the federal market], that we'd have the number of clients that we do," Campbell said, adding that he anticipates a couple more wins to be announced "over the next quarter."

In addition to acquiring the new space, the firm has increased the number of staff members dedicated to the federal market, and by the end of the fiscal year will have 35 partners, directors and senior managers based in Reston, Campbell said.

"On top of that, we're leveraging our commercial best practices so we have a larger cadre of people, including some from manufacturing, financial services, health care and telecommunications all involved in specific initiatives," he said. "That seems to be resonating well in the market."

As part of the recruiting effort, Deloitte Consulting announced two new hires this week: Suparno Banerjee, former principal in IBM Corp.'s public-sector business innovation services, has been named a director in Deloitte's federal government consulting practice; and Daniel Moats, formerly of Unisys Federal, will be leading Deloitte's federal civilian programs, Campbell said.