Corporate Lessons for the DoD - Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows' Perspective

Today's Fortune 500 companies must be agile, utilize pace, be financially flexible and continue to re-invent themselves in order to remain viable in our economy. Although the differences between corporate America and the Department of Defense (DoD) may seem vast in their philosophy and implementation, there are actually more similarities than differences. The driving factors in both worlds are still leadership, strategy, fiscal responsibility, and responsiveness, to name a few. This paper focuses on those areas the authors feel are beneficial for implementation into the DoD. The paper begins with an introduction of the Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows Program and brief overview of each Fellow's assignment. Next, the authors introduce Booz Allen Hamilton, Sun Microsystems, and Johnson & Johnson providing an overview of companies in the program and giving the reader a baseline for reference. Next, the paper will walk through each corporate sponsor and will highlight those areas each Fellow observed that have the best opportunity for successful implementation in the DoD. Although the recommendations from each sponsor company are different, the authors feel this breadth provides a good cross section of ideas from all areas of corporate America. It must be noted that due to the non-disclosure agreements signed by all officers assigned to the Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellowship Program, the unfettered access to corporate sensitive information, and the legality associated with corporate proprietary information, the authors are unable to provide specific references for some of the data contained in this paper. The original document contains color images.