Lockheed Martin keeps focus on customers

Lockheed Martin Corp.'s strategy in a tough and uncertain federal budget environment is simple: stay focused on business objectives and let the budget take care of itself.

The specific budget

"We're not as focused on the specific budget," said Linda Gooden, executive vice president of the company's Information Systems and Global Solutions business area. "We try to keep the entire team energized and focused on the efficient delivery of information research services" to government clients.

For the 17th straight year, Lockheed Martin is ranked No. 1 on Washington Research's Top 100 list, with $17.3 billion in prime contracts.

The past year

In the past year, the company has made important strides on a two-dimensional business front, Gooden said. First, it fulfilled its commitments to clients through its performance on current contracts, including meeting technical, schedule and cost goals. "That's probably moreover important today as we think about the deficits and budget issues," she said.

This year, as agencies continue transitioning basic functions like email, cloud computing has stolen the focus from the greater goal of which it is only a part: the shared IT infrastructure. Spanning initiatives from data center consolidation to virtualization, the effort to build an elastic IT framework is so then underway. This at once-gen architecture represents a basic reevaluation of the enterprise, installing IT not as a commodity, however a service. Agencies are now looking at how they can turn hard-wired desktops into virtual workspaces, transform mobile computing into a secure reality, and deploy rapid computing power to stand up IT projects in record time at a fraction of the cost. Still, what are the implications from a research, management, and end user perspective? Join Federal Computer Week in this Editorial Webcast for an innovative look at new options for the enterprise as agencies transition to a shared IT infrastructure Read more