Helping aerospace and defense companies achieve their strategic goals in a complex, competitive, and evolving landscape
What we do
Capture excellence
Even the best product needs a strong capture strategy to guarantee its success. By helping clients assess when to bid, how to price, and how to structure their business-development operations, we can increase the likelihood of winning market share.
Corporate finance
With budgets tightening, A&D companies want to optimize working capital and increase available cash. In cooperation with experts from our Strategy and Corporate Finance Practice, we guide them through this process.
Cost effectiveness
Margin expansion is critical, especially in competitive industries such as A&D, but it sometimes gets overlooked in the push for growth. Working with companies, we evaluate operating models and identify strategies for building leaner cost structures—for instance, by considering options to streamline corporate function support.
Growth
We help companies accelerate their growth strategies by taking a comprehensive look at opportunities—both organic and inorganic—in their core business and adjacent markets. By balancing risks with potential gains, we identify the big moves required to accelerate value creation.
Market assessment
Through our independent assessments, we help businesses, private-equity firms, and other industry stakeholders understand critical markets, including the size of the opportunity, growth prospects, and competitive forces. Our insights give clients a fact-based perspective on the market, including recent trends and the impact of new technologies.
Portfolio optimization
With markets shifting—and sometimes taking unexpected twists—even the most effective portfolio strategy may become obsolete. With our guidance, clients can rebalance their portfolios and adjust their investment strategy, doubling down in some areas and retreating in others.
Featured Capabilities
Corporate Performance Analytics
Corporate Performance Analytics is a digital platform for benchmarking financial performance data, developing strategies, and uncovering insights for data-driven decision-making.
Radar
Combines hard data with analytical tools to provide extensive information on A&D markets. The insights help companies develop their portfolios, reduce spending, and make better decisions about budgets, growth opportunities, and research.
Strategy Analytics Center
We help clients make better strategic decisions through a deeper understanding of corporate performance, value creation, macroeconomic forces, and global and local trends.
Featured Experts

Ryan Brukardt
Senior Partner
Advises global aerospace, defense, and space companies on achieving sustainable growth and operational excellence

Frank Coleman III
Partner
Serves Industrial clients on strategy and M&A, driven by value creation fundamentals and underpinned by complex technology investments

Vik Krishnan
Senior Partner
Advises companies in the aviation, travel, and aerospace sectors on operational-performance improvement, digital transformation, and growth

Alex Panas
Senior Partner, and Global Leader, Industry Sectors
Is the global leader of McKinsey's industry sectors

Michael Park
Senior Partner
Co-leads the global Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Practice, partnering with leaders and shapers of the world’s digital economy


Shivika Sahdev
Partner
Leader in the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility serving clients on navigating disruptions relating to electric-mobility. She co-leads McKinsey’s work on EV Charging Infrastructure and sustainability in advanced industries
Featured Insights
Rethinking inventory management in defense
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Defense companies will have difficulty unlocking cash as their balance sheets become increasingly burdened with unbilled receivables. A new inventory-management approach can help.
The CEO agenda for companies in advanced industries
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As automotive and industrial companies take tactical steps to survive the pandemic, they should seize the opportunity to embrace ten actions to sustain leadership and value creation in the coming decade.
Modernizing military acquisition and sustainment for the 21st century
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A strategy with five ingredients can help acquisition systems deal with stretched budgets, time overruns, and the COVID-19 crisis.
Aerospace and defense spending: What will be the next normal?
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Defense budgets might be stable now, but governments may reduce spending in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Large LEO satellite constellations: Will it be different this time?
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New satellite constellations are on the cusp of deployment, but their long-term success hinges on substantial cost reductions.
Refining the flight path: Seven priorities for commercial aerospace leaders through 2020
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Commercial aerospace companies need to focus on several areas, from the evolving industry structure to the development cost curve, to stay competitive.