KeyLogic – Government-Grade Digital Transformation

Businesses aren’t the only entities that need excellent digital and secure solutions.  Jon Hammock, President and CEO of KeyLogic, discusses the challenges and rewards related to working to make the U.S. government, one of the world’s largest customers, digital and secure.

Tell us about KeyLogic, the history of the company and what it does.

KeyLogic has been around for 20 years and is focused primarily on the United States’ Federal government’s digital transformation, including agencies such as the Department of Defense. As one of the world’s largest customers, the US government is a very large ‘machine’ which can make change difficult. This is a challenge we embrace, and we feel privileged that our efforts are making the country better.

Our goal is to empower these organizations to make better decisions. In fact, that’s our catchphrase –  “Unlock and Empower.” Every organization can make good decisions if we equip them with the right data at the right time. Our solutions are centered around quality business intelligence and our overall program management approach.

Furthermore, KeyLogic currently maintains a workforce of approximately 300 employees. This signifies our capacity to harness a diverse range of skills, while simultaneously retaining the flexibility to act swiftly and achieve the desired outcomes.

How did you get involved in web privacy and cybersecurity?

I’ve always been in the field of Information Technology. Earlier in my career, I worked for several companies, and after I received my MBA, I decided it was time to venture out and create KeyLogic

There are many different types of cybersecurity products on the market.  What is unique about KeyLogic?

At the core, the main difference is our anticipatory service.  This is the way we approach every problem – from the way we hire employees to how we engage with a technological challenge. We focus on accepting the client's mission as our own and work to deeply understand the needs of our clients and their customers.  Often, partners and contractors will overly focus on a statement of work on a given project – really checking the box on a specific project, without looking left or right-- and that means they can often miss the underlying issue. Too many people have ‘succeeded’ on the contract, but didn’t actually end up solving the problem.  We want to succeed on the contract AND solve the problem.

What products and services does KeyLogic provide to clients?

We focus on two main areas: Financial and Data Analysis, and Mission and Program Support.  For Financial and Data Analysis, our solution is Veracity. Veracity is a leading, recommended budget solution for the federal government. We are able to link performance management metrics and extensive reporting for budgets that ultimately are part of the President’s budget. Incredibly, over 50% of agencies still formulate their budgets using spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are a good resource, but they don’t allow for quick, across the board changes which are necessary when working against a deadline and the need for testing different scenarios.

For Mission and Program Support, we provide a number of solutions for project management, biometrics solution optimization, energy technology management, and cloud platforms. We are able to ensure that the right experience and practices are applied to these important technologies so that their implementation is successful.

While KeyLogic works primarily with the US Government, what are some of the same principles that you work with that small businesses can or should adopt as well?

Small businesses can and should adopt broad, general principles such as utilizing the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework version 1.1 (released in April 2018).  This provides a good framework and best practices for companies which are mostly independent of the size of the company.

What do you see as the most significant challenges today with regard to cybersecurity?

Without a doubt, cyberattacks are among the largest threats humanity will face in the coming years if not decades. To date, we haven’t really seen the depths of a concerted, wide-spread cyberattack, and we are well behind the curve in handling it.  The NIST framework is, however, making positive strides and GDRP is also going to play an important role by putting into place better privacy and data protection. We need to take these issues more seriously. As we’ve seen most recently, social media has not been a good steward of our data, and it is time for those who fail to protect our data to face the consequences – in the hopes that this will change in the future.