US-based Rockwell Automation Inc, an over $4.5-billion, NYSE-listed company dedicated to industrial automation and information, is focusing on further expanding its global footprint in emerging markets and expects 60 per cent of its global revenues to flow in from outside of the US by 2013-14.
“We are clearly focused on the biggest emerging markets like India, China and Southeast Asia. If you look at these markets today, they have very good gross domestic products (GDPs). With the entire mass of people continuing to move up to what we call the new middle-class, we see a continued opportunity for growth in these markets in the long term,” said Robert A Ruff, president (Asia-Pacific), Rockwell.
Rockwell, which employs over 20,000 professional globally, with around 600 based out of India including 100 at its research and development (R&D) centre at Bangalore, currently derives 22 per cent of its revenues from the Asia-Pacific region.
Speaking to Business Standard on the sidelines of Rockwell Automation on Move – Connect 11, an event to showcase Rockwell’s network of upstream and downstream partners, in Hyderabad on Tuesday, Ruff said the industrial automation sector was seeing convergence between various disciplines – controls, automation, information and safety.
“By doing so, it (convergence) is making the manufacturer lot more competitive. Given the fact that the world is flattening out and the regulations that , which are applicable outside of India, are being adopted here, convergence is becoming a major element,” he added.
Ruff said it was critically important for Rockwell’s customers (manufacturers) to experience what its offerings were, and hence looking at creating customer briefing centres to take its solutions closer to their hearts.
“We recently opened a customer briefing centre in Noida. We will probably have similar centres down south and in the west shortly , where customers can inter-play technologies, inter-connect automation and convergence as they are making decisions,” he said.