Science Applications International Corporation

Type	Public (NYSE: SAI) S&P 500 Component
Industry	Aerospace, Defense
Founded	1969
Headquarters	McLean, Virginia, U.S.
Key people	John P. Jumper (CEO) Dr. J. R. Beyster (Founder)
Revenue	$10.58 billion (2012)
Net income	$59 million (2012)
Employees	41,100 (2012)
Website	SAIC.com

SAIC's former headquarters in La Jolla, San Diego

SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation; NYSE: SAI) is a company headquartered in McLean, Virginia that provides scientific, engineering, systems integration, and technical services and solutions. SAIC works extensively with the United States Department of Defense, the United States Department of Homeland Security, and the United States Intelligence Community, including the National Security Agency, as well as other U.S. government civil agencies and selected commercial markets.

History[link]

SAIC was founded by Dr. J. Robert "Bob" Beyster in 1969 in La Jolla, California, as Science Applications Incorporated.^[1] As of 2009, SAIC employed 45,000 employees in 150 cities worldwide and reported $10.8 billion in revenue for its fiscal year ended January 31, 2009,^[2] making it number 285^[3] on the Fortune 500 list.

On November 3, 2003, Kenneth C. Dahlberg was named the CEO of SAIC, ending Beyster's 30+ years of leadership. In May 2005, under the new CEO, the company changed its external tagline from An Employee-Owned Company to From Science to Solutions, retaining the former for internal communications.

The company has had as part of its management, and on its Board of Directors, many well known ex-government personnel including Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense in the Nixon administration; William Perry, Secretary of Defense for Bill Clinton; John M. Deutch, President Clinton's CIA Director; Admiral Bobby Ray Inman who served in various capacities in the NSA and CIA for the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations; and David Kay who led the search for weapons of mass destruction for the U.N. following the 1991 Gulf War and for the Bush Administration following the 2003 Iraq invasion.

In fiscal year 2003, SAIC did over $2.6 billion in business with the United States Department of Defense, making it the ninth largest defense contractor in the United States. Other large contracts include their contract for information technology for the 2004 Olympics in Greece^[4] and from 2001 to 2005, SAIC was the primary contractor for the FBI's unsuccessful Virtual Case File project.^[5] SAIC relocated its corporate headquarters to their existing facilities in Tysons Corner in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, near McLean, in September 2009.^[6]

Initial public offering[link]

SAIC conducted an initial public offering of common stock on October 17, 2006.^[7] The offering of 86,250,000 shares of common stock was priced at $15.00 per share. The underwriters, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley, exercised overallotment options, resulting in 11.25 million shares. The IPO raised US$1.245B.^[7]

Operations[link]

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) transitioned a Remote Viewing Program to SAIC in 1991 and it was renamed Stargate Project.

In January 1999, new SAIC consultant Steven Hatfill and his collaborator, SAIC vice president Joseph Soukup, commissioned William C. Patrick (a retired leading figure in the old U.S. bioweapons program) to report on the possibilities of terrorist anthrax mailings in the United States. (There had been a spate of hoax anthrax mailings in the previous two years.) Barbara Hatch Rosenberg said that the report was commissioned "under a CIA contract to SAIC". However, SAIC said Hatfill and Soukup commissioned it internally—there was no outside client.

Patrick produced his 28-page report in February 1999. Some subsequently saw it as a "blueprint" for the 2001 anthrax attacks. The report suggested the maximum amount of anthrax powder—2.5 grams—that could be put in an envelope without producing a suspicious bulge. This was just a little more than the actual amounts—2 grams each—in the letters sent to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. But the report also suggested that a terrorist might produce a spore concentration of 50 billion spores per gram. This was only one-twentieth of the actual concentration—1 trillion spores per gram—in the letters sent to the senators.^[8]

In 2002, SAIC was chosen by the NSA to produce a technology demonstration platform for the agency's Trailblazer Project in a contract worth $280 million. Trailblazer is a "Digital Network Intelligence" system, intended to analyze data carried on computer networks. Project participants included Boeing, Computer Sciences Corporation, and Booz Allen Hamilton. SAIC had also participated in the concept definition phase of Trailblazer, beginning March 2001.^[9] According to science news site PhysOrg.com, Trailblazer was a continuation of the earlier ThinThread program.^[10] In 2005 NSA director Michael Hayden told a Senate hearing that the Trailblazer program was several hundred million dollars over budget and years behind schedule.^[11]

In November 2010, SAIC (company) was selected by NASA for consideration for potential contract awards for heavy lift launch vehicle system concepts, and propulsion technologies.^[12] Steven M. Greer MD, Director of The Disclosure Project, spoke before the National Press Club in Washington DC, in 2001, and said, "There are corporations such as SAIC, Lockheed Martin, Northrop [Grumman], and others, that deal specifically with this issue ['Black' projects] - with advanced energy and propulsion systems connected to UFOs."

BCT/FCS Modernization[link]

Graphic representation of the XM1202 Mounted Combat Systems

Boeing working jointly with SAIC, were the prime contractors in the U.S. Military's FCS modernization program.^[13] The FCS program was canceled in June 2009 with all remaining systems swept into the BCT Modernization program.^[14]

Boeing will work jointly with SAIC in the BCT Modernization program like the FCS Program but the U.S. Army will play a greater role in creating baseline vehicles and will only contract others for accessories.

Subsidiaries[link]

• bd Systems
• Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC, a joint venture between SAIC and Bechtel
• Beck Disaster Recovery BDR
• Benham, a subsidiary of SAIC and its subsidiaries
• CloudShield
• Danet
• Eagan, McAllister Associates, Inc a wholly owned subsidiary of SAIC under the C4I business unit.
• Hicks & Associates
• MEDPROTECT, LLC
• Reveal Imaging
• R.W. Beck
• SAIC-Frederick, Inc.
• SAIC International Subsidiaries
• SAIC Venture Capital Corporation
• Varec (Red)
• Applied Marine Technology Corporation, A SAIC Operation
• EAI Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary
• Vitalize Consulting Solutions

SAIC-Frederick[link]

SAIC operates NCI-Frederick, a National Cancer Institute research facility located at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Maryland (alongside an Army medical research center). About half of the 3,000 employees of NCI-Frederick are hired through the SAIC-Frederick subsidiary, paid out of a competitive $320-million contract.^[15]

SAIC and ScottishPower Form Joint Venture[link]

May 8, 2000 - Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), through its wholly owned United Kingdom subsidiary SAIC Ltd., and ScottishPower's Information Systems Division announced the formation of a joint venture (JV) between the two organizations.

The JV company, called CALANAIS, was 50 percent owned by ScottishPower and 50 percent owned by SAIC Ltd. The new company exploited the growing demand for information technology (IT) expertise in the rapidly changing global utilities sector. While continuing to focus on providing IT services to ScottishPower, the JV sought to develop external IT service business with customers within the multi-service utility sector. CALANAIS, exploiting the combined strengths of both companies, also marketed expertise in business change and Internet-enabling strategies aimed specifically at the utility sector. Initially based in Glasgow, Scotland and Chester, England, CALANAIS employed approximately 600 people, mainly drawn from existing ScottishPower staff who transferred to work in the new enterprise.

Calanais announces brand transition to parent company SAIC[link]

On August 29, 2002, SAIC announced that Calanais, a wholly owned subsidiary, will trade and market under the global SAIC brand. The existing Calanais brand and logo were phased out through a planned transition period. The Calanais entity became recognised as SAIC's utilities group.

East Kilbride, Peel Park office[link]

The group, now employs around 1500 people in the UK, 450 of whom are at its Scottish headquarters in East Kilbride.

Its East Kilbride facility currently acts as a centre of excellence serving the UK utilities sector and as the call centre base responsible for handling all UK clients.

India presence[link]

India’s third largest information technology services provider, Wipro Technologies, announced it would acquire Science Applications International Corporation's (SAIC) global oil and gas information technology practice for an all-cash consideration of around $150 million (Rs 675 crore). However, Wipro was looking to buy in India IT R&D business in this space.

Former subsidiaries[link]

AMSEC LLC, a business partnership between SAIC and Northrop Grumman subsidiary Newport News Shipbuilding divested on July 13, 2007.^{[citation needed]} Network Solutions was acquired by SAIC in 1995,^[16] and subsequently was acquired by VeriSign, Inc. for $21 billion.^[17]

FBI allegations[link]

In June 2001 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) paid SAIC $122 million to create a Virtual Case File (VCF) software system to speed up the sharing of information among agents. But the FBI abandoned VCF when it failed to function adequately. Robert Mueller, FBI Director, testified to a congressional committee, "When SAIC delivered the first product in December 2003 we immediately identified a number of deficiencies – 17 at the outset. That soon cascaded to 50 or more and ultimately to 400 problems with that software ... We were indeed disappointed."

SAIC executive vice president Arnold L. Punaro claimed that the company had "fully conformed to the contract we have and gave the taxpayers real value for their money." He blamed the FBI for the initial problems, saying the agency had a parade of program managers and demanded too many design changes. He stated that during 15 months that SAIC worked on the program, 19 different government managers were involved and 36 contract modifications were ordered.

"There were an average of 1.3 changes every day from the FBI, for a total of 399 changes during the period," Punaro said.^[18]

See also[link]

• Top 100 US Federal Contractors

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company (ISBN 978-0470097526)

External links[link]

• Official website
• Project for Government Oversight Report on SAIC - Lobbying records and lists of ex-government SAIC employees.
• Coverage of SAIC Iraq Single-source contracts
• Washington's $8 Billion Shadow (Vanity Fair Magazine, March 2007)
• Exposé: America's Investigative Reports episode on SAIC from 10/07/2007

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It is written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Tagged since December 2011. Its neutrality is disputed. Tagged since May 2010.

A multinational corporation (MNC) or multinational enterprise (MNE)^[1] is a corporation enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation. They play an important role in globalization.

Strategies[link]

Corporations may make a foreign direct investment. Foreign direct investment is direct investment into one country by a company in production located in another country either by buying a company in the country or by expanding operations of an existing business in the country. ^{[2] [3]}

A subsidiary or daughter company^[4] is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock.^[5][6]

A corporation may choose to locate in a special economic zone, which is a geographical region that has economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical or national laws.

Communication between different countries[link]

Business travel is the practice of people traveling for purposes related to their work.

A teleconference or teleseminar is the live exchange and mass articulation of information among several persons and machines remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system.

Communication between different cultures[link]

Multinational corporations need to deal with different cultures of their employees, partners, suppliers and customers.

Cross-cultural communication (also frequently referred to as intercultural communication, which is also used in a different sense, though) is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavour to communicate across cultures.

Intercultural competence is the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures. A person who is interculturally competent captures and understands, in interaction with people from foreign cultures, their specific concepts in perception, thinking, feeling and acting. Earlier experiences are considered, free from prejudices; there is an interest and motivation to continue learning.

Conflict of laws[link]

Conflict of laws is a set of procedural rules that determines which legal system and which jurisdiction's applies to a given dispute.

The term conflict of laws itself originates from situations where the ultimate outcome of a legal dispute depended upon which law applied, and the common law courts manner of resolving the conflict between those laws. In civil law, lawyers and legal scholars refer to conflict of laws as private international law. Private international law has no real connection with public international law, and is instead a feature of local law which varies from country to country.

The three branches of conflict of laws are

• Jurisdiction – whether the forum court has the power to resolve the dispute at hand
• Choice of law – the law which is being applied to resolve the dispute
• Foreign judgments – the ability to recognize and enforce a judgment from an external forum within the jurisdiction of the adjudicating forum

Globalization[link]

Multinational corporations are important factors in the processes of globalization. National and local governments often compete against one another to attract MNC facilities, with the expectation of increased tax revenue, employment, and economic activity. To compete, political entities may offer MNCs incentives such as tax breaks, pledges of governmental assistance or subsidized infrastructure, or lax environmental and labor regulations. These ways of attracting foreign investment may be criticized as a race to the bottom, a push towards greater autonomy for corporations, or both. MNCs play an important role in developing the economies of developing countries like investing in these countries provide market to the MNC but provide employment, choice of multi goods etc.

On the other hand, economist Jagdish Bhagwati has argued that in countries with comparatively low labor costs and weak environmental and social protection, multinationals actually bring about a 'race to the top.' While multinationals will certainly see a low tax burden or low labor costs as an element of comparative advantage, Bhagwati disputes the existence of evidence suggesting that MNCs deliberately avail themselves of lax environmental regulation or poor labor standards. As Bhagwati has pointed out, MNC profits are tied to operational efficiency, which includes a high degree of standardisation. Thus, MNCs are likely to adapt production processes in many of their operations to conform to the standards of the most rigorous jurisdiction in which they operate (this tends to be either the USA, Japan, or the EU). As for labor costs, while MNCs clearly pay workers in developing countries far below levels in countries where labor productivity is high (and accordingly, will adopt more labor-intensive production processes), they also tend to pay a premium over local labor rates of 10 to 100 percent.^[7] Finally, depending on the nature of the MNC, investment in any country reflects a desire for a medium- to long-term return, as establishing plant, training workers, etc., can be costly. Once established in a jurisdiction, therefore, MNCs are potentially vulnerable to arbitrary government intervention such as expropriation, sudden contract renegotiation, the arbitrary withdrawal or compulsory purchase of licenses, etc. Thus, both the negotiating power of MNCs and the 'race to the bottom' critique may be overstated, while understating the benefits (besides tax revenue) of MNCs becoming established in a jurisdiction.

Transnational Corporations[link]

A Transnational Corporation (TNC) differs from a traditional MNC in that it does not identify itself with one national home. Whilst traditional MNCs are national companies with foreign subsidiaries,^[8] TNCs spread out their operations in many countries sustaining high levels of local responsiveness.^[9] An example of a TNC is Nestlé who employ senior executives from many countries and try to make decisions from a global perspective rather than from one centralised headquarters.^[10] However, the terms TNC and MNC are often used interchangeably.

Criticism of multinationals[link]

Anti-corporate advocates criticize multinational corporations for entering countries that have low human rights or environmental standards.^[11]

See also[link]

• Globalization
• Global workforce
• List of multinational corporations
• World economy

References[link]

External links[link]

• Data on transnational corporations
• UNCTAD publications on multinational corporations
• UNCTAD—Lists of largest TNCs