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In a typical strategy course, growth strategies like mergers and acquisitions (corporate strategy) are introduced in the second half of the course. To analyze the case, students will use strategies such as Porter’s five forces and resource-based view and will discuss why firms pursue mergers as a growth strategy, along with sources of synergies and risks in mergers. Finance theory used includes analyzing a given discounted cash flow analysis and perform a comparable multiples analysis to find the value of a merger target.

The industry and financial information in the case comes from publicly available sources, including company 10K reports, business press reports and publicly available industry reports. The information about Lockheed Martin’s strategy comes from interviews with Peter Clyne, former vice president for Lockheed Martin’s IS&GS division. He then held the same position for Leidos Holding Corp., after the IS&GS division was divested and incorporated into Leidos.

This case is an interdisciplinary case containing aspects of strategy and finance. Lockheed Martin made a strategic move in 2016, to divest its Information Systems & Global Strategies Division (IS&GS), which engaged in government consulting, primarily in the defense and aerospace industries. Lockheed wanted to reassess its decision to divest consulting, given the high growth rates expected in this business, particularly in cybersecurity consulting. On the other hand, if Lockheed decided to maintain its hardware focus, it wanted to expand its offerings. In addition to a strategy analysis, two possible target firms can be analyzed: Fortinet and Maxar.

This case raises a broad set of issues related to the evaluation of M&A transactions across two different industries and corporate strategy, as it relates to strategic fit of the potential targets and LM’s current capabilities. It is appropriate for the core course in strategy at the MBA or senior undergraduate level. It can also be assigned to specialized courses in Mergers and Acquisitions. It is not appropriate for a lower level strategy or finance course, as it requires students to have prior knowledge of basic finance valuation techniques.

In the mid-2000s, the operator of New York City’s mass transit network committed more than a half-billion dollars to military contractor Lockheed Martin for a security technology capable, in part, of inferring threats based on analysis of data streams, of developing response strategies, and taking automated action toward alerts and calamities in light of evolving circumstances. The project was a failure. This chapter explores the conceptualization and development of this technology – rooted in cybernetics – and compares its conceptual underpinnings with some situated problems of awareness, communication, coordination, and action in emergencies as they unfold in one of the busiest transport systems in the world, the New York subway. The author shows how the technology, with all the theatrical trappings of a “legitimate” security solution, was apparently conceived without a grounded understanding of actual use-cases, and the degree to which the complex interactions which give rise to subway emergency can be anticipated in – and therefore managed through – a technological system. As a case-study, the chapter illustrates the pitfalls of deploying technology against problems which are not well-defined in the first place, to the neglect of investments against much more fundamental problems – such as inadequate communication systems, and unstable relationships with emergency response agencies – which might offer guaranteed benefits, and indeed lay a firm groundwork for future deployment of more ambitious technology.

Emphasizes the importance now placed on maintainability of military aircraft by the US Department of Defense. Describes how Lockheed Martin have used Delmia simulation software to simplify and speed up routine maintenance tasks for the next‐generation joint strike fighter (JSF). Ergonomics and the use of realistic human models have played a key role in determining maintenance procedures.

This paper aims to describe knowledge productivity coaches and the approach Lockheed Martin has taken to ensure that its employees have the knowledge and skills needed to utilize its information system modeled after Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 concepts and technologies. This information system is branded Unity.

To train the employee population (∼140,000 employees) in using Unity, a small team of knowledge productivity coaches was formed, who in turn mentor and coach more than 100 Unity ambassadors. These ambassadors are responsible for helping employees to understand the Unity platform and to utilize its related tools. A multitude of learning options are offered including Collaboration Playbooks, unMeetings (informal lunch‐n‐learn sessions on a specific Unity topic), videos, quick, short jump‐start guides, one‐on‐one coaching sessions, and personal assistance in setting‐up key team and personal spaces within the Unity environment. While the system is in many ways intuitive, these ambassadors provide the “human” link to learning.

The adoption rate of Unity has increased exponentially. Unity spaces increased 51 percent during the rollout in the third quarter of 2009. Much of this growth can be attributed to knowledge productivity coaches and ambassadors providing the support employees need to utilize Unity to increase their performance and productivity.

This strategy of using knowledge productivity coaches and ambassadors can be repeated for any large system implementation in the future. The methods and processes can also be leveraged to save time and money for every new program utilizing the strategy. This paper details the strategy and processes for reuse.

This paper aims to offer an original analysis of how three of the largest aerospace and defense (A&D) companies equipped their organizations for merger integration success.

Through a multi-case study, this paper explores the post-merger integration process for large-scale transactions completed over a 25-year period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with industry executives and leading management consultants. The process involved collection of primary data, analysis of secondary data drawn from publicly available company documents and identification of key factors that led to success.

Five interdependent success factors (Figure 1) support integration teams and capture deal value. Managing the process as a megaproject further facilitates the effectiveness of post-merger integration, enabling leaders to remain laser-focused on integration activity while driving toward a long-term vision for the newly formed organization.

Merger integration has been identified as a primary source of deficiency that prevents acquirers from achieving anticipated results, negatively affecting merger success. Based on the findings of this paper, firms are more likely to create a compelling long-term value creation agenda when five essential factors are combined with a megaproject approach to manage the post-merger integration process.

This study advances current knowledge in the field by responding to requests to further explore the dimensions of merger integration that facilitate success and improve shareholder value, contributing new data to inform extant theories regarding merger integration and megaproject management and adding to the limited research on post-merger integration within the A&D industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of industrial service uncertainties and the approaches for mitigating these uncertainties. The paper also sheds light on how the interplay of potential uncertainties due to service operation challenges shapes the decisiveness of product-centric businesses.

To better understand how industrial firms mitigate uncertainties of industrial service provision by their supply chains, the authors adopted a qualitative multi-case logic methodology. The approach is based on a research model of uncertainty avoidance and uncertainty reduction which the authors applied in an exploratory study with three major multi-national firms in the aerospace industry: BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Rolls-Royce.

From the analysis, the authors found that to mitigate industrial service uncertainty, there is a need for aftermarket-oriented organisation, audit-oriented governance, relationship-oriented intelligence and lifecycle-oriented contracts. The authors also found that value uncertainty originating from unpredictability in client needs and project scope and structural uncertainty caused by volatility and variability of business structures are also important quandaries in decision making situations of firms towards their supply chains for industrial services.

The paper makes two useful contributions. First, it provides an assessment of the nature of uncertainty within operations for providing industrial services. Second, the paper identifies orientations for industrial service uncertainty mitigation. Whereas product-centric businesses firms tend to vary in their states for uncertainty avoidance and reduction, the work suggest similar orientations for uncertainty mitigation across these firms.

This research paper was written in the Summer of 1995 in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Management 524 within the MBA program at California State University at Fullerton. Its purpose was to determine the effective management strategies within the aerospace industry since the defense budget began to decline in the mid 1980s. Through research of the top aerospace companies (according to the 1995 Fortune 500) over the past decade, this paper examines the various long‐term management strategies employed during the recent recession.