 "India has helped make Emerson more competitive: Steve Sonnenberg")
Earlier this year Emerson Process Management, a business unit of $24.7 billion Emerson Group, acquired Pune-based Virgo Valves and Controls.
The deal showcased how Indian companies have been able to scale to global map. In a first media interaction post the acquisition Steve Sonnenberg, President, Emerson Process Management the $8.6 billion entity, in an interview with Shivani Shinde Nadhe talks about the acquisition, India market and the firms R&D plans. Edited Excerpts:
Tell us about the acquisition of Virgo Valves.
As part of Emerson, we now have the opportunity to take them to other industries. It was an acquisition of adjacent space. With this we have expanded our market share very substantially. The space that I have responsibility of has grown twice the size.
What will be the roadmap for Virgo going ahead?
Virgo will report into our Fisher brand of business. With that it will also remain independent. The current management will continue to work with us.
At the time of acquisition their revenues were $250 million, about 20% coming from India. Their portfolio is very well distributed. They have good position in Middle East, Europe and the US. But due to their size they did have constrains of expanding into other regions. We can now take them to regions like Latin America, South East Asia etc.
Virgo is a very strong company but it is not in the top three in its space. We would like to take Virgo to the top position. I would be disappointed if we don’t have the ability to grow Virgo in double digit. With Virgo we also get 1,150 people. Of these 300 are engineers.
How important is India for Emerson?
India has helped make Emerson more competitive. Because of the access to engineering skills here we have been able to develop products faster and better, due to which we have been able to implement all these projects across the globe.
One of the main issues that our industry has been facing is skilled labour, because a lot of people in the industry (especially petro-chemical) in the mature markets are retiring and in emerging markets due to a young population these skills are not available.
So we are competing with competitors on the skill of our people. India is a great place to get such skill. Globally our strategy has been to move where we can get access to such talent.
What presence do you have in India?
As a market India has contribute about $600 million in sales for the group for fiscal 2013. As a Group we have invested about $800 million in India over the last two to three years. We have a total headcount of 9,000 people of this 4,000 are from Emerson Process Management. We have Emerson innovation centre in Pune with 1,000 people.
They work with our teams in the US, and Europe. The other is Global Engineering Centres that has a base of 1,500. Almost 70% of time spent by our engineers here is on major product revisions and new product launch.
The deal showcased how Indian companies have been able to scale to global map. In a first media interaction post the acquisition Steve Sonnenberg, President, Emerson Process Management the $8.6 billion entity, in an interview with Shivani Shinde Nadhe talks about the acquisition, India market and the firms R&D plans. Edited Excerpts:
Tell us about the acquisition of Virgo Valves.
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Virgo has a very strong reputation in the market place. They have a global brand with a very strong Indian manufacturing base. Organisationally they have strengths, like they have established relationship with many of our original contracting firms, and industry wise they are very deep and focused.
As part of Emerson, we now have the opportunity to take them to other industries. It was an acquisition of adjacent space. With this we have expanded our market share very substantially. The space that I have responsibility of has grown twice the size.
What will be the roadmap for Virgo going ahead?
Virgo will report into our Fisher brand of business. With that it will also remain independent. The current management will continue to work with us.
At the time of acquisition their revenues were $250 million, about 20% coming from India. Their portfolio is very well distributed. They have good position in Middle East, Europe and the US. But due to their size they did have constrains of expanding into other regions. We can now take them to regions like Latin America, South East Asia etc.
Virgo is a very strong company but it is not in the top three in its space. We would like to take Virgo to the top position. I would be disappointed if we don’t have the ability to grow Virgo in double digit. With Virgo we also get 1,150 people. Of these 300 are engineers.
How important is India for Emerson?
India has helped make Emerson more competitive. Because of the access to engineering skills here we have been able to develop products faster and better, due to which we have been able to implement all these projects across the globe.
One of the main issues that our industry has been facing is skilled labour, because a lot of people in the industry (especially petro-chemical) in the mature markets are retiring and in emerging markets due to a young population these skills are not available.
So we are competing with competitors on the skill of our people. India is a great place to get such skill. Globally our strategy has been to move where we can get access to such talent.
What presence do you have in India?
As a market India has contribute about $600 million in sales for the group for fiscal 2013. As a Group we have invested about $800 million in India over the last two to three years. We have a total headcount of 9,000 people of this 4,000 are from Emerson Process Management. We have Emerson innovation centre in Pune with 1,000 people.
They work with our teams in the US, and Europe. The other is Global Engineering Centres that has a base of 1,500. Almost 70% of time spent by our engineers here is on major product revisions and new product launch.