Capabilities, strategy and environment: the adaptation of the UK military aircraft industry to the Post-Cold war environment

References

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• Berkovitz , B. 1994 . Why Defence Reinvestment Won't Work . Technology Review , July : 53 – 60 . There is a body of literature on the defence industries and defence companies which argues that defence markets are unique environments, which results in the companies operating in these markets possessing extremely specific capabilities, with limited relevance to other markets. Diversifying into non-defence markets by such a company is therefore likely to be a difficult process. P. Dunne & S. Willett, Disarming the UK: The Economics of Defence (Leeds, University of Leeds, 1992); S. Schofield, M. Dando & M. Ridge, Conversion of the British Defence Industries (Bradford, Department of Peace Studies, 1992)
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• The number of interviews conducted in each company varied from one to five, being dependent upon the amount of access and time granted. The intention was to conduct at least two interviews in each company with managers from different functions, but this was not always possible.
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• The list of companies was developed from publicly available government procurement sources, and represents the most significant companies at this level in the industry. Over 20 separate operating divisions were identified, but in reality this sector of the industry is dominated by a small number of companies, the largest and most significant of which is GEC. The large companies operate in these markets with a number of separate, semi-autonomous divisions. The three companies examined were selected to take account of these factors.
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• The survey was sent to 45 companies, from which 24 replies were received, but five of the companies had no military work, reducing the number of useful returns to 19. The three companies examined were selected to represent the range of experiences found within the questionnaire. The companies examined at the second and third tier level are not statistically representative of their population, but they were selected to reflect the most typical characteristics and experiences from their sectors. The consistency of the findings with information in the public domain allows a significant level of confidence to be put in the data.
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• There are a number of non-military markets which operate in a similar way; for example, air traffic control products specified and bought by the Civil Aviation Authority. But in civil aerospace markets, R&D must be funded by the company and not the customer, without the benefit of precise specifications to define customers needs. In all the first and second tier companies which had civil and military aerospace work, this was done in separate divisions owing to these very different customer relation dynamics.
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• The company had set up, at the development stage, an industrial product group, with the intention of exploiting generic capabilities in non-defence markets. But the amount of resources and personnel allocated to these projects was low.
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• It was not possible for any of these companies to obtain numerical data, either current or historic, on the geographic distribution of their business, as this information was not broken down to the required level in the available company sources, and was a subject over which most interewees would not give explicit details.
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