L3 Technologies is an American company formerly known as L3 communications Holdings that started in 1997.The Company deals with the supplies of communications, command and controls, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and products, intelligence, ocean products, training devices and services, avionics, instrumentation, navigation products and instrumentation.L3 technologies is one of the leading Companies in the provision of a broad range of electronic and sensor systems used in military, homeland security, communication and commercial platforms. The company is also the key contractor in security and detection systems, piloting training and aerospace. Their products are mainly sold to the departments of defense, U.S. Government intelligence agencies, NASA, aerospace contractors and commercial telecommunications, Department of Homeland and Security and wireless customers (Stanal, Lwin& Murphy 2011). L3Company was started by Robert LaPenta and Frank Lanza in the company of Lehman Brothers.The two founders LaPenta and Lanza had served as executives at Lockheed and Loral before beginning L3. As a result of forming unions and acquisitions, L3 Company continued to expand and has become one of top ten U.S. government contractors. Some of the companies it was able to merge and able to acquire included Paramax Systems Corporation from Lockheed Martin, Training & Simulation Division of Raytheon Systems Co., based in Arlington, Texas which was formerly known as Hughes Training, Litton Electron Devices from Northrop Grumman (renamed L3 Electron Devices) in 2001 and more recently in 2016 MacDonald Humfrey (Automation), a Luton, UK based checkpoint security and automation company among many others.
Mission
L3 Company mission is “to provide customers with state-of-the-art communications and telemetry solutions for airborne, Intel, maritime, space and terrestrial applications”.
Vision
“To be the most trusted supplier of high-reliability communications solutions.”
L3 Technologies is a worldwide company supported by over 31,000 employees who enable the company to continue by distributing its products and providing services. L3 Company recorded $9.573 billion in 2017, an increase of $0.363 billion from 2016 in sales making a profit of $863 million. L3’s cash flow was recorded at $862 million in the same year.L3 Company is said to have poor and inefficient financial planning which leads the company to keep lots of money in the bank which could otherwise be put in measures likely to open new windows of opportunities. The salaries entitled to the executives in the company includes $98,078 for Financial Planning and Analysis Manager and $88,006 – $111,983 range for Financial Planning and Analysis Manager based on 7 L3 Technologies financial planning and analysis salary for manager reported (Thomson Reuters. 2018, January 25).
Organizational structure
Here we look at the structure in terms of corporate and management structures. L3 Company is divided into four subsystems which includes Communication systems that deals with delivering of products and services for the global communication market, space, ground, specializing in strategic and tactical airborne, and sea-based communication systems.The other system is Electronic Systems which provides a wide variety of subsystems, components, systems and related services for military, products, and commercial customers.Sensor Systems offers varied services inland, space and cyber domains,airborne and innovative sensor technologies in the maritime and the fourth system is Electronic Systems that provides various components such as subsystems, products, systems and related services for commercial and military customers(Ferreira ET AL., 2015).
The main competitors of L3 Technology are UTC Aerospace Systems, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Harris Corporation and Honeywell.Despite the completion L3 Technologies faces it has managed to thrive in market because of putting their customers’ needs as their first priority, retaining the potential and key employees and high new ones with the needed capabilities, capabilities of their facilities, personnel, and equipment, innovative and effectiveness of technologies, systems and R&D programs (Chen ET AL., 2012, June).
Strength: The greatest strength for L3 is the acquisition and merging with other companies which have greatly helped in acquiring very competitive personnel with talents in science, engineering, architecture and developers cleared by the U.S. government Securities. There is also a high demand for securities across the border where different countries are looking for better solutions. This is evidenced in 2013 when the Company won a contract worth $ $38.5 millionto supply SATCOM terminals to Australian Defense Forces with other contracts amounting to $6 to provide engineering support, program management and other services for Canada’s CC-150 Polaris fleet.This has helped in the expansion of international business which has resulted in increased market share. L3 takes high considerations in diversity and Inclusion amongst their employees and is seen as an opportunity(Watson&Strayer2010).
Weakness and threats: There is a gap in products range where consumers do not have a range of products to choose from which is likely to benefit the competitor in the market (Vogel-Heuser et al., 2014). L3 communications have poor financial planning as the Company has more cash in the bank which could otherwise be used to benefit it the more. The other weakness with L3 is a limited success to explore other business other than the core business segment they have(L3 Technologies 2018, January 25). The company has limited expansion towards adjacent products segment due to the fact that its organizational structure is only friendly to current business model(Hakiri et al., 2014). L3 research and development investment is below other fastest growing competitors in the industry posing a big threat to the future of the company through its investment is above the industry average on research and development. Last and not least L3 lacks good products demand forecast and this leads to missed opportunities which when rectified its position in the market can rise against its competitors (L3 Technologies 2018, January 25).
External Environmental Factors
Demographics
The Aerospace division of L3 Technologies is located in Greenville, TX. It is the largest campus of the four segments with over six thousand employees and is located fifty miles from Dallas with an approximate population of 26 thousand. This limits the amount of local talent from which to draw. Therefore, it maintains a diverse group of employees recruiting talent from similar markets as itself. Much of the talent required is highly specialized, such as aerospace engineers, aircraft mechanics, and software engineers, therefore, L3 recruits through an internet presence and career fairs to attract talent. L3 also recruits recent college graduates and intern partnerships through their co-op program to attract promising new talent. More senior recruits transition from other companies such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter, and Boeing to help in the design and retrofitting of aircraft and its systems.
Currently, L3 focuses more of its business in the domestic markets than internationally. On January 4th, 2018, L3 announced the creation of three international boards to drive growth in key market areas (Business Wire). L3’s press release through Business Wire identified L3 Technologies Australia Group Ply Ltd. headed by Alan Titheridge as the Managing Director. He will be leading work efforts with the Australian Defense Force (ADF) delivering advanced technologies across their air, land, and sea platforms. He will also be responsible to build upon the supplier base as well as the in-country workforce.Richard Foster will lead L3 Technologies Canada Group Inc. Their goal is to increase the customer base with the broad product line L3 offers including maintenance, repair and overhaul of support equipment and EO/IR solutions that will meet the Royal Canadian Air Force’s needs. L3 Technologies UK Group Ltd. is managed by Ronald Cook and will be expanding L3’s Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems, simulation training for both military and civilian pilots. This expansion into international markets will help solidify L3 as a global leader in key components of national defense.
Political Factors
L3 is subject to many political factors involving governments both national and international. With the majority of L3’s business practices involving U.S. departments, mainly the Department of Defense. There is stable cash flow within the company which provides with good investment opportunities in adjacent products segments. The company has so much cash in the bank which can enable it to open new windows of opportunity in the world and local markets (Obay2014).
The L3 Technologies decides to shift its business dependence on the U.S. Department of defense and focus on international sales which have already increased to 35% to de the decline in the DoD that happened in 2011 during the recess which affected its budget greatly(Lovewine 2014). The company is determined to continue to embrace its strategic plan of merger and acquisition activities which contribute significantly to international sales growth(Terpstra&Malas2017). L3 in dealing with the external environmental factors decides to introduce more products for export to countries like Canada, Australia, United Arabs Emirates, Saudi Arabia, united kingdom, and South Korea in their efforts to counter the loses it made due to overreliance on relying on department on defense. The company also target to introduce non-core products lines as a business venture to reduce risks associated with the dealing of core- business only (Chung et al., 2009)
There are international activities focusing to bring the needed growth in provision of cargo security equipment and airport, heads of states and VIPS aircraft new modification, foreign military sales Sikorsky S-92 contractor logistics support in Kuwait, and C-130 Argentina’s aircraft upgrade(Pryor et al., 2011).L3 has been able to merge and acquire new opportunities of growth which is significantly increasing the international sales. The company has already expanded international sales that seeing a growth of 35% offsetting the decline in the DoD areas of 2011(Lovewine2014).However, the company has not yet has not introduced non-core business products lines to reduce the risks associated with the one product line. The company also has not been able to come up with a better financial planning that will help in funding the opening of new windows of opportunity
organizational strategy
The Company expects to carry on with its execution of programs to increase commercial and international business in an attempt to compensate the failure of the department of defense business through focusing on creating value for shareholders. This will be a reality through dividends strategy and disciplined allocation of capital (Business Wire 2018, January 04).
There is a plan to invest close to $20million in research and development programs intended to drive innovation. Investing in the new technologies supporting DOD requirement and priority areas is the other strategic plan by the L3 technologies(Lovewine2014).
The teamwork encouraged the L3 leaders are a testimony to indicate leaders of L3 has contributed to the growth of the company. There is no company which can increase its’ innovativeness and maintains itself for years without good and qualified managers. There is evidence that shows appreciation of diversity and inclusion in L3 Company initiated by the L3 leadership(Kivimaa2014).
The actionable plan has been hindered in L3 Company by the lack of research and development projects, lack of employees’ inclusivity and also the fear of the government policies. Increased sales may also deter the actionable plan implementation where people focus more on what they have achieved forgetting the future disadvantages their actions may bring in the business(Thouti&Sathe2012).Lack of products demands also makes people in the company lack morale in the innovativeness as the product may be feared not to have the consumers. The factors that contribute towards the success of L3 Company has been high innovativeness, close attention paid to the customer needs, consumer behavior favoring purchases as well as maintenance of key employees and hiring new competitive employees. Merging and acquisition of other companies have been of great success to this company because of a new brand of talented employees that come from these mergers. The company has gained employees very competitive in the field of science, engineering, architects and development(Terpstra&Malas2017).
The company encourages self-evaluation of employees through bonuses earned by employees annually depending on their performances. The evaluation of the Company’s’ financial performance is done before focusing on the performance context of the peer group prior year performance compared to its business plan (Kani&Yoshimo2009, September). This is how self-assessment is done to improve the operation. The same is done to Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, the significant accomplishments and overall leadership of the executive, as assessed by the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer to the Committee by the committee.
References
Bolder, R. S., & Zhang, C. (2009). U.S. Patent No. 7,581,207. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Business Wire. (2018, January 04). L3 Establishes International Boards to Drive Growth in Key Markets. Retrieved April 12, 2018, from https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180104005668/en/
Chen, W., Chinga, R. A., Yoshida, S., Lin, J., Chen, C., & Lo, W. (2012, June). A 25.6 W 13.56 MHz wireless power transfer system with a 94% efficiency GaN class-E power amplifier. In Microwave Symposium Digest (MTT), 2012 IEEE MTT-S International (pp. 1-3).IEEE.
Chung, H. R., Ku, W. C., &Tsaur, M. J. (2009). Weaknesses and improvement of Wang et al.’s remote user password authentication scheme for resource-limited environments. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 31(4), 863-868.
Ferreira, J. J., Fernandes, C. I., Alves, H., &Raposo, M. L. (2015). Drivers of innovation strategies: Testing the Tidd and Bessant (2009) model. Journal of Business Research, 68(7), 1395-1403.
Hakiri, A., Gokhale, A., Berthou, P., Schmidt, D. C., &Gayraud, T. (2014). Software-defined networking: Challenges and research opportunities for future internet. Computer Networks, 75, 453-471.
Kani, J. I., & Yoshimoto, N. (2009, September).Next-generation PONs: an operator’s view. In Proceedings ECOC 2009 (Vol. 1, pp. 529-530).
Kivimaa, P. (2014). Government-affiliated intermediary organizations as actors in system-level transitions.Research Policy, 43(8), 1370-1380.
Lovewine, G. C. (2014). The Impact of the Department of Defense’s Use of Private Military Companies on US Efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Outsourcing the Global War on Terrorism (pp. 77-110). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
L3 Technologies, Inc. (2018, January 25). Q417 Earnings Release Final. Retrieved April 11, 2018, from https://www.l3t.com/sites/default/files/earnings-releases/q417_earnings_release.pdf
Mittal, S., & Martín, J. L. R. (2013, December). Model-driven systems engineering for a netcentric system of systems with DEVS unified process. In Simulation Conference (WSC), 2013 Winter (pp. 1140-1151). IEEE.
Obay, L. (2014). Financial innovation in the banking industry: the case of asset securitization. Routledge.
Pryor, M. G., Toombs, L. A., Cooke, J., & Humphreys, J. H. (2011). Strategic quality management: the role of process ownership, management, and improvement. International Journal of Business Excellence, 4(4), 420-439.
Thomson Reuters. (2018, January 25). L3 Technologies Inc. Earnings Call. Retrieved April 11, 2018, from https://www.l3t.com/sites/default/files/earnings-releases/l3_4q_2017_transcript_final_1.29.18.pdf
Terpstra, R. D., &Malas, D. W. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,843,557. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Thouti, K., &Sathe, S. R. (2012).Comparison of OpenMP&OpenCL parallel processing technologies.arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.2038.Stanaland, A. J., Lwin, M. O., & Murphy, P. E. (2011).Consumer perceptions of the antecedents and consequences of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(1), 47-55.
Vogel-Heuser, B., Diedrich, C., Fay, A., Jeschke, S., Kowalewski, S., Wollschlaeger, M., &Göhner, P. (2014).Challenges for software engineering in automation.Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 7(05), 440.
Watson, J. M., &Strayer, D. L. (2010).Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability. Psychonomic Bulletin & review, 17(4), 479-485.
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