Interior's IT Consolidation Is Here
- Guidon Federal
- Sep 17
- 3 min read
Feature Story
Interior is unifying end-user IT support into a single, departmentwide help desk with standardized Tier 1 and Tier 2 services under the Office of the Secretary. The shift follows Secretary Burgum’s April order to centralize administrative functions and mirrors Treasury’s move to a unified service model. Internal communications suggest broader rollout details in October.
Bureau silos at DOI (NPS, BLM, FWS and others) will increasingly buy and operate IT through common patterns, shared tooling, and central gatekeepers. Expect standardized catalogs, “one ticket” intake, and a preference for repeatable, secure solutions.
Map the new decision path. Build a cross-bureau value story that highlights reduced total cost to serve, faster MTTR, and low-friction deployment into a centralized help desk model. Package offers that are easy to adopt across locations, not just within a single bureau.
The October communications window and any DOI catalog or tooling mandates that follow. Also track Treasury’s Common Services Center for similar patterns spilling into HR, acquisition, and IT.
Situational Report (SITREP)
Cybersecurity and CMMC
CMMC goes live
DoD issued the final DFARS rule. Effective Nov 10, 2025 with a phased rollout through 2028, CMMC becomes a gate to award, includes conditional status for some Level 2 and 3 cases, mandates SPRS postings, and flows down to subs. If you touch FCI or CUI, readiness is now a capture requirement. Read more here
Acquisition policy and sourcing
FAR Part 8 rewrite and “required use” debate
RFO moves Schedules ordering mechanics into GSAM 538.71 and pushes agencies to mature vehicles first, with agencies implementing via deviations in 2025. Commentary argues the update moves beyond the old “best-in-class” emphasis toward clearer required-use direction for specific vehicles. Read more here
FAR Council revises Parts 7, 24, and 44
Planning shifts from prescriptive checklists to flexible, outcomes-driven approaches, with stronger small-business consolidation safeguards and streamlined CPSR references. Read more here
AI, data, and cloud
US and UK governments red-team commercial AI models
OpenAI and Anthropic gave NIST and the UK AI Security Institute deep access, surfacing new jailbreak and agent-takeover vectors and driving safeguard changes. Expect tougher assurance asks in federal AI work. Read more here
Hybrid cloud as the new end state
Agencies are treating hybrid as the destination, not a waypoint, emphasizing portability and policy guardrails. Use this to position multi-boundary deployment patterns. Read more here
Executive actions and AI data access
Roundups detail how new executive direction may shape AI data usage, reporting, and guardrails. Keep your data governance talking points sharp. Read more here
Satellite data centers
Early legal analysis explores feasibility and risk for orbital data centers. For most BD teams this is horizon scanning, but it can inform long-term compute and data sovereignty narratives. Read more here
Federal and funding signals
Census proposal could upend program formulas
Changes to census methodology could ripple through population-based allocations, shifting which programs and geographies grow or shrink. Monitor agencies whose grants and contracts track census data. Read more here
State officials push back on federal data demands
States cite capacity and privacy concerns. For BD, expect more explicit data-sharing clauses and compliance checkpoints in intergovernmental programs. Read more here
GAO products flagged this week
Bookmark these for agency posture, corrective actions, and budget justifications that will appear in solicitations and Q&A. Read more here
Business Development (BD) Tip of the Week
Turn consolidation into wins with a cross-bureau capture kit
Agency service consolidation favors offers that are easy to adopt across multiple components without custom lift. Start by mapping the decision path for the shared service owner and their intake artifacts, such as catalogs, SLAs, and standard change windows. Convert your solution into two or three repeatable deployment patterns that align to common tickets and incident types, then prebuild a migration runbook that shows day-30 and day-90 operating states. Price with a cost-to-serve model that highlights reduced tickets per user, faster time to restore, and lower onboarding effort. Close with a two-bureau pilot proposal that proves scale, with clear adoption metrics and an exit ramp if it underperforms.
Client value: faster time to value and lower operational burden. Lead generation impact: larger, multi-component deal shapes and easier referrals. Brand impact: positioned as the “safe default” for centralized teams. Executive retention strategy: anchors you to leadership scorecards like MTTR, CSAT, and unit cost.
Standing By
Questions about Interior’s consolidation wave, hybrid cloud as the end state, or how FAR updates change access paths to demand signals you can actually win? Let’s pressure-test your top pursuits against these shifts and design a cross-bureau offer kit that buyers can adopt without friction.
Reach out to us at info@guidonfederal.com
Connect with us on LinkedIn: Guidon Federal.
