Defense and security institutions worldwide—including defense ministries, military commands, regional and national security organizations, and intelligence agencies—are under intense pressure to maintain a high level of security for citizens while substantially reducing expenditures.
We help defense and security institutions meet this challenge. We combine deep international experience in national security with global expertise that spans industries and the public, private, and social sectors.
What we do
Our work in defense and security covers a wide range of topics. For instance, we help clients develop and execute strategic plans, analyze organizational behavior, explore new methods to improve operational efficiency, and redesign and implement IT infrastructure and systems.
In the past 5 years, we have supported defense ministries, military forces, police forces, and justice ministries in 15 countries on more than 180 defense and security projects. Examples of our work include the following:
- supporting a major defense agency in developing a performance-management system to improve the implementation of its new strategic plan
- assisting a military command in creating a human-capital strategy
- advising a defense ministry on how to redesign its security-clearance processing system to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness
- helping a regional-security organization develop an industrial strategy to improve competitiveness
- advising defense agencies in several countries on how to streamline their procurement processes
- supporting a client in developing an approach to prioritize contracting spending in support of stabilization operations
- helping a major security agency design an integrated system for decision making and governance
- driving end-to-end IT efficiencies across a defense organization by consolidating redundant assets, rationalizing overlapping applications, and optimizing large IT systems
We have access to proprietary research, tools, and approaches that have been successfully applied in various public- and private-sector contexts around the world. The McKinsey Center for Government’s research on core management functions, for example, helps public-sector defense and security leaders understand the practices that drive better management decisions.