Kearney is known for its distinctive, collegial culture and down-to-earth, approachable consultants with a passion for doing innovative client work. We focus our resources, leverage our global scale, and drive excellence in all we do to ensure we are collaborative, authentic, and forward-thinking.

In aerospace and defense, we use this combination of industry knowledge and multi-discipline diversity to assemble tailored consulting teams that bring the right mix of experience and skills to address the unique challenges of each situation. Our clients tell us that our distinctive working style is central to our ability to help our clients achieve an immediate impact and sustained performance.

We help develop and execute client-specific strategies to achieve immediate impact, competitive advantage, and sustained growth platforms for commercial A&D manufacturers and service providers, defense prime contractors, and subcontractors globally. Core strategy, operations, organization, and IT strengths are supported from the bottom up by rigorous advanced analytics that provide deep, fact-based insights that lead to solid recommendations. And we are frequently involved in the implementation of those conclusions.

We bring a breadth of proven capabilities to the aerospace and defense industry, including:

Improving program affordability

Defense budgets will continue to be strained in the face of multiple severe national security threats. Consequently, the push for improved affordability in programs and services remains intense and relentless. We have a long track record of teaming with clients to drive affordability in programs and services in complex, engineering-intensive environments by significantly exceeding cost reduction targets. Capabilities encompass strategy, product and weapon systems development (including both hardware and software), supplier management, production, cycle-time reduction, and sustainment.

Transforming operational performance

Whether challenges are at the enterprise, division, facility, or product or service level, our extensive A&D supply chain experience enables clients to maximize productivity, ensure quality, achieve timeliness and reliability, and manage risk in their operations. Our teams bring deep expertise in product development, complexity reduction, supply chain configuration, make-buy, manufacturing efficiency and effectiveness, procurement and supply management, IT management and operations, maintenance and sustainment, and logistics.

Optimizing portfolio strategy

While highly efficient operations are necessary in a competitive environment, they may not be sufficient if a company does not have the right product or service mix. Our teams help clients rationalize their portfolios of products and services, including introducing new products, transitioning end-of-life products, exploiting commonalities across the product portfolio, and managing complexity.

Driving innovation and product development

Technological prowess alone rarely leads to competitive advantage and growth. Rather, successful innovators rapidly translate innovation into products and services that powerfully meet identified needs. Kearney’s Best Innovator competition since 2003 has provided a deep understanding of how successful innovators continuously improve and execute their innovations strategies. Our teams deliver innovation that works by bringing diversity of technically savvy, multi-discipline, cross-industry experience and employing proven product development approaches that introduce creative nontraditional thinking and integrate strategy, operations, organization, and IT enablement.

Designing and implementing organizational transformation and talent management

A “steady state” is rare in today’s environment: organizations are seeking to improve productivity, capitalize on innovation, and find new ways to grow. In addition, A&D organizations must acquire and retain new talent to obtain cutting-edge technological skills and to replace an aging workforce. Our organizational transformation teams combine organizational effectiveness expertise with a highly collaborative working style to help our clients improve their performance and deliver on key missions and objectives. Tactics are designed for each situation but frequently include streamlining accountability, improving performance management and metrics, speeding up decision making, improving talent management processes, and reducing excessive overhead.

Maximizing value in acquisitions and divestures and managing market entry and positioning

Acquisitions and divestitures provide avenues for growth and profitability, but they often fail to achieve expected benefits. Our JumpStart merger integration methodology helps clients quickly realize the benefits of M&A and exceed expectations even in the most complex situations. Our broad expertise includes strategy development, due diligence, pre-merger planning, post-merger integration, spin-offs, and carve-outs. Our global multi-industry commercial markets perspective can also help companies enter new geographies and penetrate adjacent markets for products and services.