Page 37 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec-Jan 2021

DECEMBER 2020 – JANUARY 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
TOP 40 DEFENCE CONTRACTORS 2020 37
CORONACOASTER DELIVERS
MORE UPS THAN DOWNS
FOR DEFENCE INDUSTRY
2020 will forever be the year of COVID and bushfires. Shaped by events out of our immediate control, Defence and Defence Industry stepped up to answer the challenge. The Top 40 Defence Contractors, Top 20 SMEs and Top 20 ANZ SMEs have in many ways blazed a new path.
KATHERINE ZIESING | CANBERRA
IT WOULD be easy to look back on 2020 and only focus on the negative; bushfires, COVID, the release of the Brereton report, or the ongoing debate over what Australian Industry Capability/Content (AIC) actually is.
But there have been some excellent positives that have also come about; the mobilisation of the ADF and Reserves in re- sponse to the above-mentioned challenges and how Defence industry stepped up to answer the call on manufacturing, ag- ile responses and disruption to international supply chains. At the very least, our Zoom/Teams/Webex skills rocketed.
The headline figures for the Top 40 survey this year are also a reflection of what can be done when the need aris- es. Invoices were pushed through Defence and the primes quicker, giving SMEs the cash flow they needed. Some pro-
gram milestones were pushed to the right while other pro- grams, particularly infrastructure (see this month’s From the Source interview with Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price for more on this), were moved up.
The total turnover for the Top 40 this year is $13.31 bil- lion, up a very healthy 14.6 per cent from last year’s $11.61 billion. Once again, Raytheon Australia declined to take part in the survey as their various international mergers are still bedding down. This would have added at least another $1 billion to the figure I suspect.
ABOVE: Industry has worked with Defence in 2020 to deliver despite challenging circumstances.
DEFENCE