Neel Mehta
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bob Stevens yesterday delivered an update on key programs and shared details of the company’s affordability initiatives, including consolidating facilities, selling businesses and reducing expenses.
As the global security environment only grows more volatile and complex, economic resources become more constrained as the focus is on deficit and debt reduction, which is why Lockheed Martin continues to make reduction and affordability a top priority, Stevens said
Stevens highlighted how the firm had consolidated facilities, divested two businesses, reduced the senior employee ranks by 26 percent and frozen the salaries of the firm’s most senior employees in an effort to “get as lean and agile as we can be.”
Stevens said more than $500 million in cost reductions came from recent initiatives, including $350 million attributed to the recent voluntary executive separation program, and several hundred million dollars in additional overhead cost savings in 2011 to be built into forward pricing proposals.
Noting that Lockheed Martin was off to a good start in 2011, Stevens credited the firm’s success to the character and commitment of its 126,000 employees, saying the area he is most proud in is one the firm has “remained very constant.”
“And that area is the character and culture of this enterprise; by maintaining absolute integrity and the highest ethical standards in business conduct, principled leadership, and the dedicated professionalism in all that we do and responsible corporate citizenship,” Stevens said.
