Page 57 - Australian Defence Magazine Nov 2018

helpdesk; all of the supporting functions a company needs. We’ve strategically done this in Melbourne.
So, firstly, our hiring location has been thought about. In terms of development of staff, we employed 30 graduates in 2018 and expect to hire around 40 new graduates in 2019. We’re committed to developing our people and growing our graduate intake.
And then we have, as you’d expect from me, a large focus on diversity of gender. We have been putting a ‘gender filter’ on our re- cruitment ads and by changing the language we have doubled the number of female ap- plications we are receiving. We’re doing some activities under the diversity and in- clusion banner to access not only in the cit- ies but the aperture around attracting more people of a diverse nature, not just gender, into our business.
ADM: How has the policy landscape over the past two years affected your day to day business?
ZEITZ: At the highest level the First Prin- ciple Review recognising industry as a fun- damental input to capability, has helped. I’ve seen, as others have seen, across the management of CASG, CIOG and intel, that there is a forward leaning into indus- try that I think has come from the policy changes – that’s a big tick.
In terms of Smart Buyer (being quicker, faster), I’ve seen the large programs getting that focus and I think the First Principles is showing that they can move large pro- grams and hit their plan for RFTs out, is- sue, decision, contract. I don’t think that’s filtered down to the mid-tier programs, the between $100-$300 million programs. We haven’t yet seen the improvement from the First Principles review around timeliness, from our point of view in that space.
ADM: Why do you think that is? ZEITZ: I think there is a pressure on re- sources in our customer community and we’re starting to see that. It’s not by design or lack of decision making, I don’t think. It’s actually from the work that has to be done to either review a tender or put a busi- ness case together and get it through the system. I just think that they haven’t got the people and the capacity to do it.
The AIC piece I think is heartening and Leidos Australia is taking the lead with this – it’s a space that this company always oper- ated quite well in.
The number one best thing about First Principle Review was the stand-up of the
Joint Command and so now those pro- grams, which we we’re very interested in, have a capability manager.
ADM: Do you think there is blurring of above and below line work; is that frame- work still relevant?
ZEITZ: We don’t operate above and below the line, so for me I don’t really think so much about it. We operate below the line and if I sit back and look at what’s going on with that capacity of workforce, having such pressure, and I think what they did around the MSPs (Major Service Providers) was really sensible.
To say, ‘right, so we’re going to be going to consultants, let’s at least go to market and get some good partnerships and put that in place’ – that’s very sensible – and I think that they believe that they’ve got some good economies out of that.
I’m not going to give a view
about it but it’d be interesting to
see those companies that are those
MSPs, how do they then partici-
pate below the line and is that defined? Is it not? And because I’m not involved up there I’m not really exercising my mind too much about it because we’re operating below the line only. The fight for talent, particularly in Can- berra, is an issue that every company faces.
ADM: What are the challenges and op- portunities in the short medium and long term for the business?
ZEITZ: In terms of the strategy, we want to grow in the Defence areas that we believe we can pull capability from the US and to be a recognised technology and ICT sys- tems integrator across Government. In core Defence programs that’s JP 2060 Phase 3, which I think we’ve put a superb bid in, the deployable hospital, and then JP 2060 Phase 4 for the electronic health record of
the hospitals which is what Leidos does for the US. We run the biggest electronic health records defence program in the US, so our credibility is very strong in that space.
The other program in Defence is the com- mand and control system for HQ JOC under JP 9111, which is the next generation, is very much in our mind and we’re working on that. In terms of ISR, we are still in competition for JP 2096. We’re hoping that will come to a con- clusion soon. That’s such a tremendous strate- gic capability. The integration and search func- tionality under that program; it’s so incredibly exciting for Defence because it gives a portal.
At the moment if you’ve got to search P-8A data, you go into the P-8A repository and you’ve got to copy over to another system. The bandwidth demand alone isn’t great. You go into Wedgetail, or any other platform gener- ated data; they’ve all got their own repository. So JP 2096 interfaces into the repositories, will allow the operator to search in a single system across a range of assets (stills, video, data) and then do what you need to. The ef- ficiency that it opens up is just amazing in terms of rapid response, search, bandwidth, is really critical capability.
Obviously the intel space, we can never talk about it but we’re growing in there. And as mentioned earlier, other federal agencies across our full range of capabilities both in Australia and supported by reach back into our US parent.
LEFT: JP 2110 sees Leidos working with a range of local SMEs to deliver the capability.
OPPOSITE PAGE: New CBRN equipment under JP 2110 will be a step change for
the ADF
www.australiandefence.com.au | November 2018 | 57
“The ongoing investment in
ICT is the most important part of our defence network-centric warfare.”
DEFENCE