| ABB Canada: Continuous Growth |
| Featured Spotlights | |||
| Written by Ashley McGown | |||
 This Canadian organization remains successful because of its ability to access global resources and implement them on a regional level.
As a result of the current market, it’s more important than ever that a business leader proves his or her company is capable of quickly adapting to fit the needs of the constantly shifting environment if the organization is to remain successful heading into next year. Sandy Taylor, who was named president and CEO of ABB Canada in January 2005, realizes the significance of continuous business development and has used the strategy to expand and deepen the organization’s presence during the past four and a half years. With a strong foothold in many areas, Taylor and his team plan to use their base to support future growth.  Sandy Taylor, president and CEO In recent years, Taylor and his team invested in a handful of carefully selected acquisitions, which he said play an instrumental role in business development because they complement organic growth. In particular, the investments helped the team expand its footprint in Western Canada and better address the needs of the markets there. Most recently, ABB Canada purchased Calgary-based Ber-Mac Electrical and Instrumentation in November 2008. The acquisition significantly increased ABB Canada’s presence in the Alberta oil and gas market. “They were a strong component of that market segment, so this deal improves our overall capabilities, especially in terms of oil and gas,” Taylor said. The company, which retains the brand name Ber-Mac, has executive leaders from the prior operation and ABB Canada working together to ensure a smooth intergration. The purchase of Ber-Mac was the latest in a string of three Alberta-based acquisitions that increased the organization’s footprint in Western Canada. In August 2006, the group purchased Raffin Electric, which specializes in custom, pre-manufactured power distribution centers. In October 2007, the team bought out PowerTran, a field and repair transformer service center. Although the latter company staffed a team of just 25 employees prior to the deal, Taylor said the purchase allowed his team to become “the largest and best-resourced transformer service provider in Western Canada.” Prior to the trio of acquistisions, ABB Canada employed approximately 50 people in offices across the western part of the country. Today, that number has risen to north of 600, but Taylor and his team don’t rely exclusively on this method of expansion; they work hard to grow the company organically as well.  A global network ABB Canada is a part of ABB Group, an international organization that performs business in more than 100 countries across the world and has offices in 87 of those countries. Per its business model, ABB Group is made up of five global divisions—Power Systems, Power Products, Automation Products, Process Automation, and Robotics, which are represented in numerous countries by national subsidiary operations like ABB Canada. With annual revenues of close to $35 billion and a practically innumerable list of resources, ABB Group employs approximately 120,000 individuals throughout the world. Its team plays a major role in helping utilities and other businesses across the energy sector improve their fiscal performance and reduce their carbon footprint. Although each regional operation has a separate executive team and business outlook, all sectors of ABB Group share a resource pool and are well integrated with one another. “As the leader of a country organization within ABB Group, my responsibility is to take advantage of the resources the global divisions provide, including best practices and technology,” Taylor said. “Our global capabilities are implemented on a local level,” he continued. “We have the support of far-reaching research and development, but because we operate within the same country as our customers, we can work closely with them when delivering products, systems, and services.” Exploring different markets ABB Canada has made a strong effort to improve its service and product offering in the Western Canadian market in recent years, but the organization has also focused on a number of projects that revolve around other markets. For example, Taylor and his team invested in the expansion of one of the company’s large power transformer factories in Varennes, Quebec. According to Taylor, the project increased ABB Canada’s capacity to service customers throughout North America because it gave its team an expanded build capacity, as well as the ability to repair transformers on behalf of clients.  a North American mandate for certain technologies,” he added. Still, with the majority of the organization’s efforts focused on projects in the Canadian market, Taylor and his team plan to spend a great deal of time implementing solutions to fit the needs of customers that will be developing smart grid systems in the coming years. “Smart grid is an interesting idea because a lot of companies are still trying to define what it really means. The technologies are new, and these businesses are still trying to figure out the best method of development and implementaion,” Taylor said. “We play a major role in developing the related products, and we see the system as an opportunity to use IT to make electrical equipment more intelligent, which results in better decisionmaking,” he added. “Looking to the future, the upgrading and interconnecting of grid systems in developed markets will continue to grow.” In addition to work surrounding smart grids, the team at ABB Canada plans to focus its effort on the renewables market in the coming months. The organization is already a major equipment supplier to companies in the wind power generation industry, but Taylor would like his team to become more heavily involved with businesses in the water, wind, and solar industries. He predicts renewable energy sources will play an even larger role than most imagine in the near future. In terms of the economic climate, Taylor and his team know they can’t predict when the market will turn around, but they are confident in ABB Canada’s ability to pull through successfully and become stronger in years to come. “Everyone wants to know what’s going to happen in the market in the coming months, but that’s a difficult thing for any individual to put his or her finger on,” Taylor said. He added that although no one truly knows when things will improve, the economic climate will get better at some point, and when it does, the team at ABB Canada plans to take advantage of any opportunities that arise. “We’ll continue to invest in the expansion of our existing operations, both organically and inorganically,” he said. |
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