If the adage ‘big is best’ can be applied to IT trade fairs then CeBIT, the annual exhibition held in Hanover, Germany just keeps getting better. This year, over the course of six days from March 19 to March 25, some 600,000 visitors are expected to traipse across more than 370,000 square meters of exhibits displayed by some 7,250 companies. Despite its reputation as the world’s premier IT event, however, CeBIT remains a German-dominated affair, with nearly two thirds of the exhibitors hailing from the host country. And, unsurprisingly, nearly 3,000 meters of that floor space are dedicated to Germany’s largest computer systems supplier, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG. At SNI’s international press conference, held on the company’s impressive four-floor stand in the heart of Hall 1, Gerhard Sculmeyer, the company’s chief executive, was bullish about its progress towards its goal of becoming a global force in computing. For the first five months of this fiscal year, which began in November 1997, Schulmeyer said sales grew 11% to $3.4bn, a rise of 8% on the same period last year, while new product orders rose 14% to $3.7bn. While he would not reveal any detailed information, Schulmeyer said earnings were on target but would be impacted by heavy investment in developing SNI’s services business.
By Joanna Mancey
What Schulmeyer was keen to point out, was that SNI’s sales outside of its domestic market grew at an accelerated rate during the period, edging the company closer towards his goal of deriving a third of revenues from Germany, a third from the rest of Europe and a third from the rest of the world. Sales in the rest of Europe and the Americas, he said, rose 24%, while sales in Asia Pacific rose 27%. That means international sales now make up 44% of SNI’s revenues, up from 38% for the same period last year. We are slowly but surely moving ahead outside of Germany but the baseline is still too small, said Schulmeyer. He admitted the company needed to expand its US business, by acquisition if necessary, if it were to be taken seriously as one of the major global computer companies. Schulmeyer said one of his major challenges before stepping down as chief executive next year, is to expand the company’s presence in North America. To help continue to drive the company forward, Schulmeyer announced further restructuring of the company. Following his decision to divide SNI into two divisions in November last year, Products and Technology Services and Solutions and Business Services, Schulmeyer said the company has now begun spinning off its application software products, including Cardis, Sicad and Sidoc, into small, separate business units. The aim, he said, is to create an invigorating start-up atmosphere. We now have software companies in real time in a real environment, he said. The growth in SNI’s sales, said Schulmeyer, is a direct result of the company’s focus on closing the gap between business processes and technology infrastructures for users. As good Germans we know once you start something, you finish it. This is not always the case in the rest of the industry, he said. To help deliver on that promise, SNI has been ramping up its services business and, according to Schulmeyer, SNI is now the fourth largest services provider in Europe, competing head-to-head with IBM Corp Global Services and Electronic Data Systems Inc. Schulmeyer said that, in the first five months of this fiscal year, services accounted for roughly 50% of revenues, much of which came from its work as an SAP AG systems integrator and from building company intranets and extranets. We are the largest in Europe for this, said Dr Friedrich Fr÷schl, head of Solutions and Business Services. Seeking to dispel rumors about the poor performance of SNI’s PC business Schulmeyer said, The PC business is not a bottom line burden for the company. Far more famous brothers and sisters of ours are having a much tougher time.
