PEO Perspective: October 2020

HAPPY NEW FISCAL YEAR!

It’s been a busy, productive year. I am very proud of the team for all that we have been able to accomplish despite the challenges of the COVID-19 environment. In the year ahead, I remain committed to my priorities of delivering capabilities, recruiting and retaining talent, and building the bench of future leaders -- as well as making PEO EIS a workplace of choice, and ensuring discipline in all that we do.

FCW INTERVIEW
It was a pleasure to speak with Federal Computer Week (FCW) last month for my first interview as PEO: “Prioritizing talent, diversity to boost modernization at PEO EIS,” which published September 23. It was a great opportunity to round up some of our most important topics as we look to the year ahead.

With more than 1.1 million Soldiers worldwide, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System - Army (IPPS-A) will be the world’s largest HR Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The IPPS-A team, led by Col. Rob Williams, accomplished Release 2 on time and is headed into Release 3, and they have already fielded to the entire National Guard. I’m also excited about ERP modernization as it applies to business process re-engineering, and the Army Vantage system, which is compiling, verifying and visualizing the Army’s vast troves of data -- to name just a few of our most high-profile initiatives.

ITES-SW2
Additionally, the Army Computer Hardware Enterprise Software and Solutions (CHESS) office, in coordination with Army Contracting Command – Rock Island (ACC-RI), recently awarded the Information Technology Enterprise Solutions – Software 2 (ITES-SW2) contract -- a $13 billion, firm-fixed-price, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract vehicle designed as the primary source to support the Army’s IT goals by leveraging commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software products. For more information about ordering, be sure to visit https://chess.army.mil/.

AFCEA BELVOIR LUNCHEON
I enjoyed continuing the tradition of keynoting the AFCEA Belvoir fiscal year kick-off luncheon late last month. You can find my slides from the luncheon on the Events page of the PEO EIS website.

More than 260 industry partners attended the virtual event, with topics covering my priorities and focus, cloud migration and ERP modernization, my expectations of industry and some of the key changes within our organization.  We are implementing a phased, strategic, internal reorganization of our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programs to better align our capabilities and assets. This effort includes project office name changes in an effort to better describe what that project office is and does. Given feedback from industry and our stakeholders, we recognize that our program names can often be confusing.

As of October 1, what was known as General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS) is now Defense Integrated Business Systems (DIBS).

Additionally on October 1, Military Technical Solutions (MilTech), which provides information and knowledge management solutions to more than 1.5 million users at Army and DoD organizations, joined the PEO EIS portfolio.

UPCOMING EVENTS
Fall is our busiest season for engagements. With the annual AFCEA Belvoir luncheon now behind us, my next event is the 2020 Gartner Army Virtual Session on October 19. The program will include a panel of Army leaders who will share strategic objectives, mission critical priorities and the path to success. The topics are intended to help attendees prioritize Gartner sessions and activities during their 2020 Symposium.

The Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference is virtual this year, October 13-16. Like past in-person events, the virtual meeting will feature addresses by top Army and national security leaders, professional military forums and presentations by industry. Though things will look a little different this year, PEO EIS will have a strong presence. The Army Vantage program’s Commanders Risk Reduction Dashboard (CRRD) and IPPS-A will both participate in a media roundtable as part of the AUSA Warriors Corner, and Deputy PEO Mr. Burke and I -- along with O6 leaders from across the PEO portfolio -- will be meeting with industry, partners and stakeholders. Registration began in September; we hope to virtually see you there!

If you haven’t yet registered, be sure to do so for the annual AFCEA Belvoir Industry Days, also virtual, which run from November 17-19. I hope you will attend and hear keynotes from Army and DOD leaders, and be sure to catch our program offices’ panels and breakout sessions. We look forward to sharing the latest programmatic updates and procurement opportunities with you and making connections that will help us to innovate and deliver services and products to Soldiers around the globe.

A reminder that the organizational chart for PEO EIS is available as a downloadable pdf on this site for a quick overview of the leaders to contact for a meeting or discussion about how to support the mission -- you can also fill out and submit the meeting request form for speedier access. Also, make sure to visit the Business Opportunities page, where you can download a copy of the top four procurement opportunities as of September 29, which will be updated each quarter.

Thank you for your continued support of PEO EIS and its programs, products and services. We appreciate your feedback from recent events and will continue to improve products for ease of use and access to the latest procurements. I look forward to engaging with you at upcoming events – here’s to a productive, innovative and safe new fiscal year!

Connecting the Army. Working for Soldiers.

Ross R. Guckert

Program Executive Officer Enterprise Information Systems