The one-two punch of a tense budgetary climate and a proliferation of cyber threats is changing how the federal government does business, particularly at the agency charged with much of the Defense Department's IT service.

"Like the entire federal government, we are driven by fiscal reality. Also like the entire federal government, we have a growing and evolving cyber threat we need to worry about," Maj Gen Sarah Zabel, DISA vice director, said Nov. 2 at the agency's Forecast to Industry in Washington, D.C. "Those two forces are strongly shaping how we're approaching our business over the next two years."

That changing approach to business means DISA officials, Zabel in particular, are looking to streamline processes and trim down overhead costs. Zabel noted she's also focused on integrating faster acquisition practices and policies to reflect the speed of cyberspace.

"Every dollar we spend on overhead translates to a dollar that our mission partner has to spend with us. We want to make sure that is absolutely minimal," she said. "We need to institutionalize a rapid acquisition and development cycle — this is because our mission partners include war fighters, the president of the United States, the combatant commands [and the] military services … the cyber threat has sharpened over the last couple of years and we just expect to see more and more operational necessities driven by the cyber threat as we go on. This imposes an operational imperative to step up how we're providing our capabilities and our ability to bring new capabilities to the war fighter quickly."

Beyond reducing overhead and targeting cyber, Zabel also highlighted a handful of other key areas about which she's concerned, including acquisition discipline, effective competition and consolidation efforts. All of that is unfolding under the ongoing fine-tuning of DISA's major re-organization implemented last year.

"We've streamlined our interface to our mission partners and streamlined our interface to industry," Zabel said. "We're still refining our processes to make sure the new organization serves its partners appropriately."

MORE:  See our complete DISA Forecast to Industry Show Reporter.

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