ProDX's resolution: E-gov business

Over the past three years, Professional Data Exchange Inc. - ProDX — has

earned more than $10 million in revenue by helping public-sector organizations

upgrade legacy systems. So it's not surprising that the company's chief

executive officer made a New Year's resolution to establish a formal e-government

practice.

Peter Stroeve, president and CEO of the Portland, Ore.-based IT services

consulting firm, recently launched a special advisory group to recommend

strategies for establishing business focused on building Internet-based

solutions for state, local and federal agencies.

"They're in the process of creating a strategic plan," he said. "We should

have drafts by mid-January and the launch on March 1, assuming the plan

says it's a good thing to go forward."

The company already does some state and local government work in Colorado,

Oregon and Washington, but it has yet to break into the federal space. The

strategic plan will include suggestions for all three levels of government

"to identify where the opportunities are," Stroeve said.

Stroeve named Don Mazziotti, previously chief information officer for the

state of Oregon, to be the lead adviser for this group. Phil Keisling, a

former Oregon secretary of state and ProDX's vice president for business

development, will also serve in an advisory role for this initiative.

Keisling said he "made IT a critical part of the strategic plan" during

his tenure as Oregon's secretary of state. ProDX is in a good position to

formally target the public sector because it has watched its private-sector

counterparts and learned lessons from their successes and failures, he said.

"We are not a reseller," Keisling said. "We're a company that is very strong,

with a lot of maturity that develops solutions based on the requirements

of an organization, not on reselling agreements...and that is well-received

in this market."

The two programs that ProDX will most strongly market through its future

e-government practice will be its "readiness review" and "e-planning" services,

Stroeve said.

The readiness review examines an agency's Internet-readiness based on factors

ranging from its infrastructure and business processes through its management

team. E-planning looks at potential Internet opportunities and lets the

customer pick out a few, and ProDX then runs a return on investment scenario.