Lockheed Martin Tops Federal IT Rankings

Lockheed Martin. Northrop Grumman. Leidos. IBM. Dell.

These companies are among the most well-known suppliers of hardware, software and IT services, and not surprisingly, they top IDC Government Insights latest Federal IT Rankings.

Released today, the rankings evaluate vendors based on total government IT sales over the past calendar year and funnel companies into two categories: Those that derive more than one-third of their revenue from government and enterprise companies that do not.  

Despite selling off its IT business to Leidos last year for $5 billion, Lockheed Martin took the top spot among companies that sell primarily to the government. Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin was followed by Northrop Grumman Systems, Leidos, Battelle Memorial Institute, Raytheon, DynCorp International, CACI, CSRA, L-3 National Security Systems and General Dynamics.

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These rankings could shift due to recent mergers and acquisitions. L-3 National Security Systems was bought by CACI last year, and CSRA has been racking up big contract awards in recent months, including a $2.4 billion award in recent weeks from the National Security Agency. In addition, ManTech International—rated the 17th largest government IT provider—announced Monday it would pay $180 million in cash to acquire InfoZen, which specializes in helping agencies modernize IT systems.

In another big move this week, Northrop Grumman purchased aerospace company Orbital ATK for $7.8 billion. The move allows Northrop Grumman to pursue future space-based contracts with NASA, of which software and IT services will undoubtedly play a large role.

Among enterprise companies—those that derive less than one-third of their total revenue from government customers—IBM topped the list. Since 2011, Big Blue has been the government’s top-selling cloud computing vendor, expanding its cloud business to the Defense Department over the past year with growing interest in its Watson software.

Behind IBM, Dell, Intel, Science Applications International Corporation, Level 3 Communications, Boeing, Microsoft, Unisys, Jacobs and CGI round out the top 10.

According to Government Insights Research Director Shawn McCarthy, if these top companies seem like they’ve been around the government space forever, it’s because they basically have been.

“What’s interesting is that some companies, especially those near the top of the two lists, have been leading government IT vendors for years. Other companies may appear on the lower part of the list one year, but not the next, because of significant contract wins or losses,” McCarthy said.

With stifled government budgets, it’s challenging for new companies to push out the old guard of contractors who know how to navigate the government’s acquisition process and can leverage sometimes decades of experience. Still, some companies have made a dent. Amazon Web Services, the largest cloud services company, ranked 15th on IDC’s enterprise company list.