Founded in 1986, Unisys Corporation is an American global information technology company based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, that provides a portfolio of IT services, software, and technology. The Unisys business sector examined in this blog is Unisys Federal Services, led by Venkatapathi “PV” Puvvada.
Although the company is a major commercial IT services provider, Unisys’ U.S. federal business only accounts for around 21% of the company’s overall revenue. Even if you are a GOVCON veteran, there is a chance that you haven’t run into Unisys as a major competitor (yet). Unisys Federal has a contracting footprint that is very focused within specific agencies, and the company has not yet broken out of its current core customers.
As you can see in Unisys’s revenue breakdown below, cloud and IT infrastructure support are key services across the Unisys business. We will see this as a common thread as we look into Unisys Federal’s flagship contract work.
Figure 1 – Unisys’s 2019 Revenue Profile, provided in the company’s Q1 2019 investor relations snapshot
Their most significant federal customers
Unisys’s largest federal customer is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP alone has historically accounted for over half of the company’s federal revenue. This trend won’t change until Unisys scores multiple large prime contract wins.
In federal fiscal year 2018, the company generated just over $500 million in prime contract obligations – over $300 million of which was from the CBP.
Figure 2 – Distribution of their top 6 federal customers based on prime contract obligations between fiscal year 2014 – 2018.
Their defining contracts
Although Unisys does not have the same depth of contract work as some of the other companies (for example, General Dynamics IT) that we have highlighted in the past, there are several major contracts that define the Unisys portfolio.
IT Services for CBP
- One of Unisys’s most noteworthy programs is the CBP Targeting and Analysis Systems Program Directorate (TASPD) IT Operations and Maintenance contract. Unisys supports the technologies used to assess people and cargo entering the United States. The company recently won the recompete for the 5-year, $407 million TASPD IT O&M follow-on in March 2018.
- Another significant CBP program under the Unisys is the Border Enforcement Management Systems (BEMS) Software support contract for CBP Border Enforcement Management Systems Division. Unisys supports development, enhancements, and maintenance of CBP mission systems and will have to defend their incumbency on this $525 million contract when it recompetes this year.
- Rounding out Unisys’s trifecta of CBP contracts is the CBP Integrated Traveler Initiative (ITI) Program. This $240 million, 5-year contract last awarded in 2016 provides the technical support necessary to sustain the hardware and software monitoring all ports of entry across the U.S. border. Unisys has been the incumbent on previous iterations of this program since 2008.
Cloud, Storage, and IT products
- Moving beyond CBP, Unisys provides the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with enterprise storage services (including storage asset acquisition and data migration to the cloud) for the under a 10-year, $121 million contract.
- Unisys is also the OEM of the Unisys 2200 Operating System used by the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). Unisys has been a long-time provider of this product for the agency, and currently provides licenses and maintenance of the Unisys 2200 Operating System (OS) Environment through a $193 million ceiling value sole source follow-on.
And don’t forget about Unisys’ IT products
Unisys has a depth of existing IT tools and managed services that could be easily be low-cost “delighters” to help Unisys break into new markets. Here are a few Unisys products that have already been adapted for federal use:
- ClearPath Forward is a suite of scalable software environments that to support high-volume enterprise computing. This product package includes the OS2200 system used by DISA.
- CloudForte is a managed service for the modernization and governance of AWS and Azure cloud environments. Originally a commercial offering, Unisys has adapted CloudForte for federal customers.
- Unisys Stealth is Unisys’ play into the cybersecurity market. Stealth is a portfolio of several cyber defense and threat detection tools and productized services. Unisys claims that that Stealth is already deployed on Federal, State, and Local government networks.
What’s next for Unisys?
In order to grow in the future, Unisys will have to push outside the bounds of its current customer portfolio. There is only so much opportunity left to be had inside CBP, and Unisys will have to aggressively pursue contracts that fall in the “new customer, same service” category.
Although Unisys is not currently a ubiquitous federal contractor, they have deep service capabilities and technology resources as a commercial giant that would allow them to succeed in most federal IT environments, given the right key hires. Access to the Unisys enterprise wide product portfolio will certainly help bridge the gap when competing against other, more well-known IT services contractors.
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