Over the 3 days of the conference, I had engagements with 3 primes, defence representatives, industry bodies and US SMEs.
From these engagements I took away the following: You need to go. While there is a significant distance between the USA and Australia, this should not be a reason not to get on the ground and understand the issues for yourself. The US holds a number of defence conferences each year in all different regions. Do your research and attend a conference which may be relevant to your business.
Keep up to date with the conferences in which Team Defence Australia are participating as they do a great job in advocating to for Australian businesses. Keep up to date with current policies. From a personal view, I was surprised by the lack of discussions about AUKUS at SAS. Commentary on US defence procurement was understandably focused on developing US industry so any attempted entry into the US market must take this into account.
Don’t do it alone. The US defence procurement system is complex. Any Australian business attempting to navigate the procurement system on its own from Australia, without any in country assistance will be a very difficult and potentially costly exercise. Use industry associations. There are many defence industry associations who can assist business to access their local networks to drive business for their regions. While businesses may choose not to join a trade association just get joining them on LinkedIn costs nothing and is a good step in any due diligence process. Although my visit to the US was short, the insights obtained were invaluable and I now have better understanding of what is required for Australian and US SME’s to succeed in the AUKUS environment.
