General manager of Madrid-based NCR Espana Fernando Reyes is looking towards the future with optimism, no doubt relieved that the horizon appears to be a good deal clearer than in recent years, which have been marked by shifts in strategy, changes of logos, staff cuts and many comings and goings at management level. In an interview with Computing Espana, Reyes said that the company had come through a difficult period and he believed it had been a positive step both for the image of the company and for its employees to have regained the name of NCR. We have lived through a number of changes and doubts which no longer exist, Reyes said, in a clear reference to the abandonment of the Globalyst strategy, in the personal computer segment and the loss of more than 400 staff in Spain in the last three years. Now the way ahead seems considerably more straightforward, with good prospects of success. Our motto for the moment could be summed up by ‘concentrate on what you’re good at,’ Reyes declared. According to Reyes, it is quite patently the financial sector where NCR excels, a sector that accounted for 62% of the Spanish subsidiary’s revenue of $165m in fiscal 1995. A second line of business comes through public administration – 24% of revenue – while the remaining 16% is provided by the retail sector and some strategic accounts in commerce and industry. Consultancy is also important to NCR, generating $22.3m in 1995, and here Reyes highlighted the firm’s series of data warehousing centered systems and its locally developed systems which are tailor-made to help clients with telephonic electronic banking. Reyes said NCR Espana was in no doubt about the need to seek the support of other companies through alliances and partnerships, in order to offer clients global systems (the ghost of the old name lingers!) – and he cited recently-signed agreements with Software AG and services specialist Control Presupuestario in this respect. The subsidiary’s goal for the current fiscal year is to increase business by 10%, not an impossible task according to Reyes, since he considers the company to be very well-positioned in the datawarehousing market with its MPP servers: this is a difficult, competitive market, but one in which we have a headstart through the purchase some ten years ago of Teradata Corp, one of the first companies to concentrate on this type of system, Reyes declared.
