The entire company showed revenues up about 9 percent at Constant
Exchange Rates (CER) and operating profit up 6 percent. The Operations
Management and Controls groups showed strong results, while Rail
revealed "fewer large orders."
Invensys Operations Management results revealed that it has exceeded the
$2 billion mark in orders for the first time at $2.090 billion. This
was a 19 percent increase over 2010 at CER. Revenues were up 12 percent
at $1.8 billion and operating profit was $191 million up 31 percent.
I'm not officially a financial analyst and seldom report these numbers.
These I believe are significant because of where Invensys and the
Operations Management division were and how far they have come. And
profits grew more quickly than revenues despite the fact that the
division boosted employment by 9 percent or about 700 people to a total
of 8,897. That's a sign that both a better product/service mix and
improved operating efficiencies are in place.>> For more FEED FORWARD content, click here.
Sudipta Bhattacharya, Invensys Operations Management CEO, took some time
today for a conference call with me to discuss the results. He
attributes much of the division's success thus far to focus on people
and talent. He believes the company is an industry leader using social
media internally for collaboration and innovation. One result of the
focus lies in the 70 product releases made last year.
Some people have talked to me about a perceived decline in company
interest in the measurement and instrumentation part of the business. In
fact, factories are busy right now churning out products. Bhattacharya
added that leadership has evaluated the portfolio and has been investing
"where we can be competitive."
An important foundation for the future is the Wonderware and ArchestrA
platform. The division has sold more than 200,000 Wonderware licenses
over the past two years. Says Bhattacharya, "This is significant because
we bundle our higher level offerings such as workflow on top of that.
It is the foundation of our Enterprise Control System solution, which is
our strong differentiator."
Invensys plc CEO Wayne Edmunds stated in the financial report, "Having
worked closely with our businesses over the past two years as Chief
Financial Officer, it is clear to me that we have three strong
divisions, each with management strength in depth and the ability to
create significant growth and value. Execution means having a discipline
for linking people, strategy and operations to create sustainable
value. To that end, we have decided to move away from an integrated
operating model, with centralised functions and matrix management,
towards a holding company model where divisional management has greater
control and responsibility for their operations."
When I asked about that statement, Bhattacharya noted, "We have always been empowered. This just adds to it."