Interview with Miles Hutton, Leidos
Q: What are Leidos' key messages at DSEI?
A: Primarily, we’re reinforcing our investment in the UK. We’ve been here building 30 years of relationships with the MOD, and introducing innovative technologies both to government and our partners. DSEI is a great place to meet our customers, partners and suppliers. We’re one of the top three technology providers into the UK MoD. We have a long term programme - 13 years, £6.5 billion - that enables everything from food rations to medicines to be where they need to be at the right time, at the right price delivering benefit and value to the end user. That’s a model we want to repeat in other areas.
Secondly, we’re already working with the MOD in delivering C4-C2 services, both UK and abroad, and we’re committed to building a UK sovereign capability based upon our US experience. That’s all about bringing in technology innovation to deliver military advantage and situational awareness. The way we do that is identifying capabilities - be they service technologies, commercial IP, innovation - which we can align to the needs of the MOD.
Q: Are there any particular challenges you would like to discuss with the wider industry?
A: We’re running two panel sessions as part of our activity at DSEI. One of them is about the resilient supply chain - in our logistics space, how do we support and work collaboratively with our customer? The other is about the agile supply chain - how you deploy that to Mali, Ukraine, and support frontline capability in an agile way.
Q: What are the key takeaways from your panels at DSEI?
A: The panels will show how we’ve worked collaboratively with the MOD, and it’s about understanding that collaboration. I don’t think any one organisation can deliver end-to-end, and therefore collaboration across those commercial boundaries - whether it’s logistical, platforms or sensors - is the way to deliver advantage to the MOD.
With innovation, be it commercial or technical, how do you get interested stakeholders to work across those complex boundaries to deliver advantage across the whole force?