2012 Annual Report - Spirax-Sarco Engineering plc

Strategies for growth
We have developed a robust global
business model and seek to build
upon this foundation with five primary
strategies to develop our future
growth prospects.
Mark Vernon
Group Chief Executive
Key strategies
Create strong market positions
through local expertise and
customer insight.
Deliver solutions to reduce
energy usage through innovative
engineering and comprehensive
energy audits.
Broaden our global presence
through first-to-market leadership
in emerging markets.
Grow market share through increased
market penetration and one-stop shop
customer approach.
Generate consistent organic growth
by providing greater customer value.
What are the strategies for developing
the business over the longer term?
The Group has developed a robust, global
business model that has proved resilient
through the business cycles. We are seeking
to build upon this foundation with five primary
strategies to develop the future growth
prospects of the business.
• We seek to further strengthen our strong
global market positions in steam systems
and niche pumping through strong customer
relationships in which our highly-trained
local sales engineers and technical support
staff provide expertise in applications
and in steam system design, operations
and maintenance.
• We supply effective solutions in response
to difficult customer plant productivity issues
and we help our customers reduce their
energy and water usage, and save money.
• We are broadening our global presence
by being first to enter new markets with a
direct presence that enables us to deliver to
our customers the full range of engineering
solutions, products and services.
• We seek to grow our market share by
widening the range of products, services
and pre-fabricated engineered packages
that we supply, and to make it even easier
for our customers to source all their
requirements from us.
• We strive to generate consistent
organic sales growth by providing greater
customer value through skilled local
expertise, close customer relationships and
local availability of a wide range of products
and engineering solutions.
How do the strategies align with the
changing business environment?
High energy costs and reducing energy
and water usage are areas of increasing
concern to our customers. Changing
legislative requirements that require
substantial reductions in CO 2
emissions and
other plant emissions, plus better hygienic
operations in hospitals and in the production
of foods, beverages and pharmaceuticals,
are becoming increasingly burdensome to
our customers. Additionally, many of our
customers are reducing their plant staff and,
as a result, are seeking fewer key suppliers
to provide turnkey systems design,
operations and maintenance consultation.
We have developed a large cadre of local
sales and service engineers who are highly
trained in efficient steam system design,
maintenance and operations, and niche
pumping. The skills of our sales and service
engineers, coupled with our strategy of
widening our range of engineered solutions,
are making it easier for our customers
to turn to Spirax Sarco to source all
their requirements.
What are the short-term goals?
Over the short term, we will continue to add
technical sales and support resources in
emerging markets around the world. We
see excellent growth opportunities in these
markets and will continue an investment
programme of sustained market development.
For example, in the past three years we have
added 100 sales and service engineers in our
emerging markets in the Middle East, Asia,
Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe,
and our sales growth is benefiting from
these investments.
In addition to our market development
objectives, our product development efforts
are yielding exciting new products that are
broadening our ability to effectively monitor,
meter and control the use of steam and other
process fluids. We are also expanding our
range of pumps, controls and boilerhouse
products to improve plant automation and are
looking to introduce new heat exchange and
heat recovery solutions to address more
difficult heat transfer applications and to convert
waste heat into usable energy or power.
Summary
I am confident that the Group is putting in
place the longer term strategies that will
build upon our already robust and resilient
business model. The Group benefits from
a very strong global market presence and
brands, and we are looking to broaden
our range of engineered solutions for our
customers in more locations around the
world in order to make it even easier for
them to source all their steam system
and niche pumping requirements from us.
Mark Vernon
Group Chief Executive
16 Spirax-Sarco Engineering plc Annual Report and Accounts 2012