David Dunkel
Analyst · Robert W
If you look at the government space, this is Dave, I would say that, that was a part of the opportunity that we saw, that we would be able to command and take advantage of the staffing delivery capabilities in our Technology and F&A footprint. And in fact, we're quite successful in doing so until the current administration came in, in which we've seen a significant change in terms of in-sourcing, the awarding of contracts to 8(a) firms, which you're familiar with. So with those things and now with the government debt situation, it certainly -- it's a challenging environment to say the least. With that being said, we have very, very minimal market share. So the disruption that's happening in the government space actually creates a very significant opportunity if we're able to adapt to it. For example, the larger firms that are entrenched, they're going to have to adjust margins, they're going to have to adjust footprint. So competitively, if the smaller firms like ours are able to adapt and adjust and take advantage of the areas that we have a confidence and expertise, we actually believe that we can win business where these other firms are unable to adjust. So that's the theory. We've had some success with it, and time will tell whether or not that works. And certainly, those are considerations as we look and say, "Okay, over the long term, how are we doing strategically in that space?" The Clinical business, clearly, we've got major challenges there and question marks, but with that said our team is adapted and adjusted. We've made quite a bit of progress actually in going after smaller and middle market clinical firms. As that space evolves, we've seen more of the new research and development for drug development shifting to some of the smaller firms. We think the industry is kind of evolving where the larger firms will actually be in manufacturing and distribution, smaller firms and even private equity firms will be taking more of the development risk. So as we look at what's happening in that space, it's still uncertain. There may be significant opportunities, but at this point it's too early to tell.