Question

What are lockheed martins advantages and disadvantages in the marketplace? Market place and competition.

Answer 1

Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), the largest defense company, is showing a very strong stock performance since 2012, soaring by more than 50%. As of 03/24/2016, the stock outperformed both the market and the Aerospace & Defense industry Yoy. Due to its specific sector, the stock is not as fragile as the market during economic slowdown or market selloff. Indeed, the main customers of LMT are the U.S. governments and foreign governments in need to and willing to increase their military expenditures. Given the recent changes in its product portfolio, its position within the market, its cash management strategy, its huge investments in innovation and emerging technologies, and the current and expected future geopolitical situation, the stock seems ready to continue with its strong growth to reach the $240-$250 range within the end of the year.

Advantages

Lockheed Martin is a vast organization with offices across the U.S. and overseas. The breadth of career fields employed by Lockheed Martin makes it a great company to begin working for. Additionally, as a prime contractor on many programs, programatic control is often easier than many other contractors. Many interesting projects may be found by working at Lockheed Martin.

Reasonable stability. Lockheed Martin has had this current contract for over 13 years. There is some flexibility in the work hours. As long as you hit your 40 hours per week you're ok. There are a lot of pretty smart people working here, so the ability to pick up additional knowledge is available.

Lockheed Martin is a very organized and well managed company. They really have their act together. The are the top defense contractor and their level of competency is a big reason for it. The benefits are good and they are active in showing community support. Overall a good place to work, a lot of talented engineers that know how to get the job done.

Disadvantages

Lockheed Martin is a vast organization. Due to compliance issues and the fear of legal action, often standing out is difficult. In order to progress quickly in your career, you must be quite ambitious.

Very political. Poor communication. The thought that because they have a "plan" for communication, they're actually communicating. Too many obstacles to getting the job done. The idea that the employees are simply plug-and-play commodities. There is no thought to growing their employees. They simply hire someone to fulfill a need, rather than provide training and opportunity to their existing employees. Tuition reimbursement is a joke.

Too often the company line is the status quo. Part of the downside of being the top defense contractor is that they tend to stiff their employees on their salaries. Sharing the wealth would promote loyalty among employees and reduce attrition. Lockheed has one of the highest attrition rates and it is not hard to see why. The yearly performance appraisal system can also be long and cumbersome and often result in a 2-5% raise at best. Perhaps sitting down with employees would be a better approach