International Operations of Lockheed, Boeing, and Airbus

The international scope of operations
Lockheed, Boeing, and Airbus are all in the aviation manufacturing industry. While Boeing and Airbus have popular for the manufacturer of commercial airplanes, Lockheed Martin is popular for manufacturing security and defense products. For all these companies, their operations have an international reach from suppliers to consumers. For Lockheed Martin, from the F-35 Lighting II and the C-130J aircraft to the integrated air and missile defense, commercial satellites, and cybersecurity, the firm has its operations devoted to working with customers to realize their security needs through performance-proven measures, key industrial partnerships, and an operational base that is expanded ("Lockheed Martin International," n.d.). Lockheed Martin International team has its headquarters in London in England and Washington, D.C., with corporate offices worldwide. Boeing has a global reach of customers from approximately 150 countries, employees, and operations in over 65 counties, and partnerships with more than 20,000 diverse partners and suppliers ("Global Focus," n.d.). Likewise, Airbus manufactures and delivers a range of planes to a global clientele. All these three firms have a global reach with corporate officers worldwide, but concentrating in the Americas, Europe, and Asia ("Worldwide presence," n.d.). They work with partners, especially governments, to supply commercial airplanes, defense and security equipments, and lately, space operations, mainly at the research level. They have strong relations with stakeholders, especially suppliers who are spread through all the continents.
What countries are involved?
The international operations of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Airbus are all spread to various countries, including United States, United Kingdom, India, Australia, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Canada, and Japan. It can be argued that these three firms have truly a global reach because each has an operation, though in varying scales, in all continents of the world, including in Latin America and Africa.
Special challenges faced by these companies in countries of operation
Because of the limited number of effective and efficient aircraft manufacturers who can manufacture large-scale and safe planes and the complexities of designing, manufacturing, and assembling an aircraft, the challenges facing these firms are mainly due to production scale. These three companies are the main and most popular globally. Thus, they have increased traffic from governments and national carriers; thus, the consequences are delayed plane deliveries, stressed customer services, and costly error, e.g., errors in the 737 Max by Boeing.
With the changing aerospace environment, customers are changing their preferences for planes. In the commercial aviation industry where Boeing and Airbus operations are primarily focused, customers' current demands are safety, comfort, and affordability. These three requirements are contradictory, as safety and comfort bring about expensive aircraft. On the other hand, Lockheed Martin is required by governments to provide highly innovative warplanes that are equipped for success on the modern battlefield. These are battles that can function seamlessly and link up with all other ally plans and relay information to other plans and ground troops, the navy, and the command center. This means the firm is required to be continuously innovative, which is a challenge.
In the modern age, all other countries require planes that are manufactured to be sustainable and cut down on carbon emissions. Given that the aviation industry is one of the largest contributors to Green Gas Emissions, there is an increasing demand for aircraft manufacturers to design sustainable aircraft, which is a challenge for these manufacturing firms.
Is international expansion a key aspect of value creation for these firms?
Yes. For these firms to grow, internationalization is a key factor used for the creation of value. For example, while the operations of Lockheed Martin began with the American government, the company has sought to expand internalization to reach a wider market (Ramón-Rodríguez, Moreno-Izquierdo & Perles-Ribes, 2011). Airbus and Boeing, who are popular with commercial aircraft, have also used international expansion as a key strategy for generating value by targeting the global market. These companies target the global market and the unreached and underserved markets by seeking to design planes that fit the specific needs for these markets, e.g., airbus models and private charter planes. However, the company's internalization strategy is affected by several factors of the country in which the company is headquartered (Al-Kwifi, Obeidat & Fetais, 2020). For example, the countries in which Lockheed Martin expands its operation to are dependent on the political relations between the target country and the United States.
Previous successes and failures of international projects for these firms
The various success and failures of international projects for these companies are specific to each. For example, for Lockheed Martin, the F-35 Lightning II is one of the major international success projects. The Plane, which has revolutionized the war field because of its capabilities, is hailed as a major success. Notably, fighter jets and other military planes from Lockheed Martin have been very successful in the industry, e.g., the Blackbird and the C-130. Boeing has also had a successful international project, e.g., the Boeing 747 and the V-22 Osprey (Thomas, 2018). Also, Airbus has had successful international projects such as Airbus A320. However, the Boeing 737 Max is considered a failed international project mainly after the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). This software upgrade led to two dreadful crashes in Ethiopia and off Indonesia's coast, leading to a grounding of the model globally (Gates & Baker, 2019).
References
"Global Focus." Boeing Around the Globe. Boeing, (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.boeing.com/global/
"Lockheed Martin International," Lockheed Martin, (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/who-we-are/international.html
"Worldwide presence: At home around the world." Airbus, (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.airbus.com/company/worldwide-presence.html
Al-Kwifi, O. S., Obeidat, S. M. I., & Fetais, A. H. M. (2020). Exploring the influence of home country factors on rapid internationalization of emerging multinational companies. Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 12(4), 258-279.
Gates, D. & Baker, M. (2019, June 22). The inside story of MCAS: How Boeing's 737 MAX system gained power and lost safeguards. Seattle Times. Retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the-inside-story-of-mcas-how-boeings-737-max-system-gained-power-and-lost-safeguards/
Ramón-Rodríguez, A. B., Moreno-Izquierdo, L., & Perles-Ribes, J. F. (2011). Growth and internationalization strategies in the airline industry. Journal of Air Transport Management, 17(2), 110-115.
Thomas, G. (2018, Sept. 19). World's ten most successful commercial jet airliners. Airline Ratings. Retrieved from https://www.airlineratings.com/news/worlds-ten-successful-commercial-jet-airliners/