ICF International Stock

ICF International, Inc. provides professional services and technology-based solutions, including management, technology, and policy consulting and implementation services. The company helps its clients conceive, develop, implement, and improve solutions that address complex business, natural resource, social, technological, and public safety issues. The company’s services primarily support clients that operate in three key markets, such as energy, environment, infrastructure, and disaster recovery; health and social programs; and security and other civilian & commercial.

The company provides services to its diverse client base that deliver value throughout the entire life cycle of a policy, program, project, or initiative. The company’s primary services include:

Advisory Services: The company researches critical policy, industry, and stakeholder issues, trends, and behavior. The company measures and evaluates results and their impact and based on those assessments, provide strategic planning and advice to its clients on how to navigate societal, market, business, communication, and technology challenges.

Program Implementation Services: The company identifies, defines, and implements policies, plans, programs, and business tools that make its clients’ organizations more effective and efficient. The company’s comprehensive, end-to-end solutions are implemented through a wide range of standard and customized methodologies designed to match its clients’ business context.

Analytics Services: The company conducts survey research and collect and analyze wide varieties and large volumes of data to understand critical issues and options for its clients and provides actionable business intelligence. The company provides information and data management solutions that allow for integrated, purpose-driven data usage.

Digital Services: The company designs, develops, and implements cutting-edge technology systems and business tools that are key to its clients’ mission or business performance, and include solutions to optimize the customer and citizen experience for its clients. The company provides cybersecurity solutions that support the full range of cybersecurity missions and protect evolving IT infrastructures in the face of relentless threats and modernize IT systems core to its clients’ operations.

Engagement Services: The company informs and engages its clients’ constituents, customers, and employees to drive behavior and outcomes through public relations, branding and marketing, multichannel and strategic communications, and reputation issues management. The company’s engagement services frequently rely on its digital design and implementation skills, such as web and app development.

The company performs work for both government and commercial clients. The company’s government clients include the U.S. federal agencies, state and local governments, as well as governments outside the U.S. The company’s commercial clients include both the U.S. and international clients. The company’s clients utilize its services because it offers a combination of deep subject matter expertise, technical solutions, and institutional experience which contribute to its solutions being beneficial. The company’s domain expertise and the program knowledge developed from its advisory engagements further position it to provide its full suite of services.

The company serves clients globally from its headquarters in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, is 55 regional offices throughout the U.S., and 15 offices outside the U.S., including offices in the United Kingdom (U.K.), Belgium, India, and Canada.

Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, and Disaster Recovery

For decades, the company has advised its clients on energy and environmental issues, including the impact of human activity on natural resources, and has helped develop solutions for infrastructure-related challenges. In addition to addressing government policy and regulation in these areas, the company’s work focuses on industries that are affected by these policies and regulations, particularly in those industries most heavily involved in the use and delivery of energy. Significant factors affecting suppliers, users, and regulators of energy are driving private and public sector demand for professional services firms, including:

Changing power markets, increasingly diverse sources of supply, including distributed energy resources and an increased demand for more carbon-free sources of energy and/or energy storage;

The changing role of the U.S. in the world’s energy markets;

Ongoing efforts to upgrade energy infrastructure to meet new power, transmission, environmental, and cybersecurity requirements and to enable more distributed forms of generation and greater reliance on more distant electricity generation;

Changing public policy, regulations, and incentives, including those established by the Inflation Reduction Act (the IRA), surrounding the modernization of and investment in an upgraded energy infrastructure, including new business models that may accompany those changes;

The need to manage energy demand and increase efficient energy use in an era of environmental concerns, especially regarding carbon and other emissions; and

The disruption of global energy markets and supplies, involving natural gas in particular, that have emerged as a result of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The company assists energy enterprises worldwide in their efforts to analyze, develop, and implement strategies related to their business operations and the interrelationships of those operations with the environment and applicable government regulations. The company utilizes its policy expertise, deep industry knowledge, and proprietary modeling tools to advise government and commercial clients on key topics related to electric power, traditional fuels, and renewable sources of energy. The company’s areas of expertise include power market analysis and modeling, transmissions analysis, power engineering and substation design, flexible load and distribution system management, electric system reliability standards, energy asset valuation and due diligence, regulatory and litigation support, fuels market analysis, air regulatory strategy, and renewable energy and green power project implementation. The company’s acquisition of CMY Solutions, LLC (CMY), a power engineering firm, in 2023 has brought consulting, engineering, and power systems design skills that add value to its existing mix of capabilities.

The company also assists commercial and government clients in designing, implementing, and evaluating demand side management programs, both for residential and for commercial and industrial sectors. Utility companies must balance the changing demand for energy with a price-sensitive, environmentally-conscious consumer base. The company helps utilities meet these needs, guiding them through the entire life cycle of energy efficiency and related demand-side management and electrification programs, including policy and planning, determining technical requirements, and program implementation and improvement.

The company supports governments at the federal and state and local levels, including providing comprehensive support to the National Science and Technology Council’s Global Change Research Program. Additionally, the company supports ministries and agencies of the government of the U.K. and the European Commission (the E.C.), as well as commercial clients, on these and related issues.

Demand for the company’s services will continue to grow as government, industry, and other stakeholders seek to provide natural disaster recovery and rebuilding. In the wake of the major hurricanes (Ian, Harvey, Ida, Idalia, Irma, Maria, Laura, and Michael) that devastated communities in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, the affected areas remain in various stages of relief and recovery efforts. The company’s prior experience with disaster relief and rebuild efforts, including after hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Superstorm Sandy, puts it in a favorable position to provide recovery and housing assistance, and environmental and infrastructure solutions, including disaster mitigation, on behalf of federal departments and agencies, state, territorial, and local jurisdictions, and regional agencies. The company supports ongoing disaster recovery and mitigation efforts in a variety of the U.S. states, territories, and local jurisdictions that have been affected by natural disasters, including but not limited to, hurricanes.

The company also has decades of experience in designing, evaluating, and implementing environmental policies and environmental compliance programs for energy, transportation (including aviation), and other infrastructure projects.

By leveraging its multi-disciplinary skills, which range from finance and economics to earth and life sciences, information technology, and program management, the company is able to provide a wide range of services that include complex environmental impact assessments, environmental management information systems, air quality assessments, program evaluation, transportation and aviation planning and operational improvement, strategic communications, and regulatory reinvention. The company’s acquisition of Blanton & Associates (Blanton) in September 2022 added to these skills and expanded its geographic reach. The company helps clients deal specifically with the interrelated environmental, business, and social implications of issues surrounding all transportation modes and infrastructure. From the environmental management of complex infrastructure engagements to strategic and operational concerns of airlines and airports, its solutions draw upon its expertise and institutional knowledge in transportation, urban and land use planning, industry management practices, financial analysis, environmental sciences, and economics.

Health and Social Programs

The company also applies its expertise across its full suite of services in the areas of health and social programs. The company is well positioned to provide its services to help its clients develop and manage effective programs in the areas of health, education, and social programs at the international, regional, national, and local levels. The company’s subject matter expertise includes public health, biomedical research, healthcare quality, mental health, international health and development, health communications and associated interactive technologies, education, child and family welfare needs, housing and communities, and substance abuse. The company partners with its clients in the government and commercial sectors to increase their knowledge base, support program development, enhance program operations, evaluate program results, and improve program effectiveness.

In the area of federal health, the company supports many agencies and programs within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including the National Institutes of Health (the NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) by conducting primary data collection and analyses, assisting in designing, delivering, and evaluating programs, managing technical assistance centers, providing instructional systems, developing information technology applications, and managing information clearinghouse operations. The company’s 2022 acquisition of SemanticBits, LLC (SemanticBits) brought substantial expertise in technology applications used in CMS to oversee healthcare quality. Increasingly, the company provides multichannel communications and messaging for public health programs. The company also provides training and technical assistance for early care and educational programs (such as Head Start), and health and demographic surveys in developing countries for the U.S. Department of State (the DoS). In the area of social programs, the company provides extensive training, technical assistance, and program analysis and support services for a number of the housing programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and state, territorial, and local governments. In addition, the company provides research, program design, evaluation, and training for educational initiatives at the federal and state level. The company provides similar services to a variety of U.K. ministries, as well as several Directorates-General of the E.C.

Security and Other Civilian and Commercial

The company serves a number of other important government missions and commercial markets. These government missions range from Security (e.g., the U.S. Departments of Defense (DoD), Homeland Security (DHS), and Justice (DoJ)) to a variety of other civilian government departments and agencies.

Security programs continue to be a critical priority of the federal government, state and local governments, international governments (especially in Europe), and in the commercial sector. The company provides key services to DoD, DHS, DoJ, and analogous Directorates-General at the E.C. The company supports DoD by providing high-end strategic planning, analysis, and technology-based solutions around cybersecurity. The company also provides the defense sector with critical infrastructure protection, environmental management, human capital assessment, military community research, and technology-enabled solutions.

At the DHS, the company assists in shaping and managing critical programs to ensure the safety of communities, developing critical infrastructure protection plans and processes, and establishing goals and capabilities for national preparedness at all levels of government in the U.S. At the DoJ, the company provides technical and communications assistance to programs that help victims of crime and at-risk youths. At the E.C., the company provides support and analytical services related to justice and home affairs issues within the European context.

Other large federal departments and agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, also face important challenges that motivate them to transform their business processes and to modernize the associated technology systems. The company supports these organizations with a variety of technology and program support services.

The company assists its clients in their growing efforts to ensure equity in their program operations, whether it is with an environmental justice or a health equity focus, or some other perspective depending on the program being delivered.

Strategy

The company’s strategy to increase its revenue and shareholder value involves various key elements, such as expand its commercial businesses; replicate its business model across government and industry in selected geographies; strengthen its technology-based offerings; leverage advisory work into full life-cycle solutions; defend, expand, and deepen its presence in core the U.S. federal and state and local government markets; pursue larger prime contract opportunities; and pursue strategic acquisitions.

Client and Contract Mix

Government clients (including U.S. federal, state and local, as well as international, governments) accounted for approximately 76% of its 2023. Commercial clients (including U.S. and international clients) accounted for approximately 24% of the company’s 2023.

The company’s clients span a broad range of civilian and defense agencies and commercial enterprises. Commercial clients include non-profit organizations and universities, while government clients include the World Bank and the United Nations. The company’s contract periods typically extend from one month to five years, including option periods.

Competition

Some of the company’s principal competitors include: Abt Associates; Accenture; AECOM Technology Corporation; Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation; CACI International Inc.; CLEAResult Consulting, Inc.; Deloitte LLP; General Dynamics, Inc.; Guidehouse; HORNE; Leidos Holdings, Inc.; PA Consulting Group; Science Applications International Corporation; Research Triangle Institute; Tetra Tech Inc.; and Westat, Inc.

History

The company was founded in 1969. It was incorporated in 1999. The company was formerly known as ICF Consulting Group Holdings, LLC and changed its name to ICF International, Inc. in 2006.