Lockheed making good on international pledge with $800M Australia win

Lockheed Martin has won one of its largest non-U.S. IT contracts now that it has landed a $800 million deal with Australia to support that country’s defense department.

It’s a nice win for Lockheed as the company’s leadership has said on numerous occasions that international markets are a key growth area for the company. [See our Q&A with Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Marillyn Hewson.]

Her goal is for Lockheed to reap 20 percent of its revenue from international customers. In 2013, the company pulled in 17 percent of its revenue from international customers.

For the Australian contract, Lockheed Martin and its team competed against IBM. The Australia Defence Department picked Lockheed as the winner in May, but the contract wasn’t signed until this month. Hewlett-Packard was an earlier competitor for the work, according to the Australia Defence Department website.

The Lockheed team will consolidate infrastructure and applications to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Australian Defence Department’s data centers.

The contract runs through 2022.

Lockheed Martin’s partners include NEC Australia, ASG, Dell, Deloitte, Canberra Data Centres, Cisco, ISI, NetApp, VMware and EMC.

Lockheed Martin has been laying the groundwork for more business in Australia for several years, including the creation of Lockheed Martin Australia, which represents all of the company’s sectors in the region, including Information Systems and Global Solutions, Mission Systems and Training and Aeronautics.

Most recently, the company opened what it calls a node of its cybersecurity intelligence center network in Canberra, Australia.

“In Australia, we’re developing an increasingly strong footprint in our information systems business,” said Sondra Barbour, Lockheed executive vice president of IS&GS in a statement. “Not only are we applying extensive experience earned from over 20 years as the U.S. Government’s number one information technology provider, we are also leveraging the outstanding knowledge of our growing team here in Australia to further advance our capabilities across the wider corporation.”

Australia officials described the contract as a partnership. “The project will deliver a smaller number of more reliable and resilient data centres, from within 280 data centres to 11 domestically and three internationally,” said Australia Defence CIO Peter Lawrence in a statement.