The Modern Enterprise: Why FinOps and AI are MANTECH's Dual Focus for Financial Modernization

By Timothy Schaad, VP and Technical Director - Federal Civilian Sector, MANTECH

In the federal sector, the concept of the "Modern Enterprise" is not a futuristic vision; it's an immediate operational imperative. At MANTECH, our entire approach to client modernization—especially within financial systems—is driven by two core, interlocking priorities: integrating Cost Optimization and the intelligent, tactical use of AI and Automation.

We are bringing these innovations forward not as theoretical concepts, but as proven, accredited solutions that start here, solving our customers' hardest problems first.

Priority 1: Integrating Cost Optimization into the Cloud Model with FinOps

The mass migration to the cloud fundamentally shifts how costs are managed, moving from a CapEx to an OpEx model. Yet, many organizations struggle to manage this financial paradigm shift effectively. That’s where FinOps becomes a non-negotiable discipline.

FinOps is not just a financial concern; it’s an engineering and security challenge. We focus on answering two hard questions in real time:

1. Visibility: How do we appropriately instrument the environment so we can transparently see what's happening with every dollar spent?
2. Actionability: How do we embed elasticity into the engineering itself so we can make real-time decisions and optimize costs immediately?

This is a hard problem, and it's where MANTECH is truly leading the way. FinOps must be pulled into place alongside disciplines like DevSecOps and Continuous Authority to Operate (ATO) to form a truly coherent, modern operating model that avoids the disastrous cycle of ripping everything out every five to ten years because of technical debt.

Priority 2: Tactical AI to Eliminate Technical Debt

The second priority is the intelligent and targeted use of AI and Automation. While the market is currently caught in a hype cycle, MANTECH is focused on delivering real results with accreditable, production-ready solutions. We are very strategic about choosing the right AI tool for the job.

Currently, one of the lowest-risk, highest-value items a customer can tackle with AI is code conversion. While code development is still tricky, we are seeing strong results with Large Language Models (LLMs) supporting developers through the rapid conversion of legacy codebases. 

This is where our two priorities connect: FinOps optimizes the ongoing costs of the modern enterprise, while tactical AI accelerates our customers out of their legacy technical debt that is dragging those costs down.

At MANTECH, we are delivering AI-enabled code conversion to accelerate our customers out of that debt, enabling them to leapfrog into the modern, elastic and financially accountable environment that FinOps enables.

We want to unlock the genius of the employees who have been constrained by bad processes and old technology. By leading with proven innovations in FinOps and AI, we empower our clients—and our people—to bring their full capability to bear.

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