Expert Feedback: FTI Consulting on Defense Demand, Budget Acquisition Reform

Research evidence excerpt

Expert Feedback: FTI Consulting on Defense Demand, Budget Acquisition Reform

Aerospace & Defense Electronics

Equity Research

June 12, 2026

Robust Demand Leaves Room For Both Primes and New Entrants. Whitcomb characterized

the competitive landscape as expanding rather than shifting away from incumbents. Traditional

primes continue to play a central role, leveraging scale, manufacturing capability, and deep

customer relationships, while non-traditional players bring innovation, speed, and flexibility into

the system. The emerging model is collaborative, with partnerships between primes and newer

entrants becoming increasingly common. These partnerships allow companies to combine strengths

across development, production, and integration, particularly as systems become more complex

and interconnected. Demand growth across both legacy platforms and next-generation capabilities

supports a multi-player ecosystem, with opportunities for both incumbents and challengers.

Supply Chain Constraints Concentrated at Foundational Inputs. Supply chain constraints remain a

key limiting factor, particularly at foundational levels of the industrial base. Whitcomb identified critical

minerals and solid rocket motors as two of the most significant bottlenecks, with implications across

multiple programs and platforms. These constraints are difficult to address in the near term, requiring

both capacity expansion and coordination across domestic and international supply chains. At the

same time, Whitcomb pointed to opportunities to leverage underutilized commercial manufacturing

infrastructure to accelerate component production without requiring greenfield investment. Over time,

improved demand visibility through framework agreements and targeted investment should help