Bad news sells. If you are a TV or newspaper “journalist,” that phrase is your mantra. Well, this post isn’t about bad news. Invensys plc, and specifically for our purposes Invensys Operations Management, has released its Fiscal Year 2011 results which were overall positive.
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.
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.”
