Savvis launches federal spinoff

Savvis, a global provider of information technology utility services, is creating a separate company to concentrate on the federal government market. Called Savvis Federal Systems (SFS), the company’s headquarters is in Herndon, Va.

SFS will offer the full range of Savvis services through a General Services Administration schedule contract. The services include hosting, networking, digital content services, managed security services and professional services. SFS' initial emphasis will be on earning subcontracts to an array of prime contractors.

The company was formally launched in January 2005 but has been operating under the radar while Don Teague, a telecommunications industry veteran hired to serve as vice president, put together a sales force and the necessary infrastructure.

“We’ve been doing that, and we’re now ready," he said. "We’ve been winning contracts along the way, [but] 2006 is really our action year.”

Savvis has worked extensively in the commercial sector but is not well-known in the government market, Teague said. In part, he brought his credibility and reputation to the table in taking the lead at SFS. Teague has served leadership roles in the federal divisions of Sprint and AT&T during the past few years.

As important as that is, he said, “there’s no substitute for basic blocking and tackling. The momentum we’re achieving is not just a matter of having great sales and marketing people. We derive a lot of our value from the work we’ve done on the commercial side.”

Teague plans to compete for a place on several high-profile contracts due for award in 2006, including the Networx network services contract, the Alliant governmentwide acquisition contract, GSA's Veterans Technology Services GWAC, the Army's Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 GWAC and the Defense Information Systems Agency's Encore II IT services contract.

As he led the preparatory work at SFS through 2005, Teague said, "I thought that the contracting cycle we were stepping into was very, very important.”