Executive Insight: Powering Productivity

CE Asia: ABB has made a remarkable recovery after some tough times earlier in the decade; what wouldyou put this down to?

Foo: Divesting non-core activities sharpened our focus and allowed us to concentrate fully on our core power and automation technology businesses. That has certainly been key and also successful, when you consider that we are delivering a revenue level that is closed to that of the pre-crisis years with half the number of people (108,000) we once had.

Another factor is our consistent R&D investment and technology innovation. This is our lifeblood and when customers think of ABB, what comes to mind is a company with strong technology. Even during the crisis years we were spending a billion dollars on R&D, and the payoff is that we have a very current and leadingedge product portfolio. For example, there was considerable investment in our 800xA DCS platform and this will serve us well now for many years.

CE Asia: How does ABB Singapore fitinto the overall ABB organization?

Foo: We are part of ABB South Asia region, which extends from India all the way down to Australasia. Our South Asia region hub is headquartered in Bangalore. The level of business is rather sizable for the region as a whole and is almost some 10 percent of ABB group or more than US$2.5 billion. South Asia is a very exciting region – home to some two billion people and providing great opportunities for growth from its mix of emerging and developed markets.

CE Asia: And what activities takeplace in Singapore?

Foo: ABB is organized into five divisions – Power Systems, Power Products, Process Automation, Automation Products, Robotics – and the whole of ABB group’s portfolio is represented here in Singapore. A lot of the business we do here has a regional rather than just a local mandate, meaning that we get engaged in projects across Asia and even in places like Qatar. This is particularly the case for Process Automation, which contributes almost half of our portfolio in Singapore.

We are also proud to have two centers based here that take global responsibility: the Center of Excellence (CoE) for Pulp and Paper – which focuses on open control system applications; and the Center of Competence (CoC) for Marine – which focuses on serving the offshore oil rig construction industry that is currently seeing tremendous growth.

CE Asia: And you recently opened anew center for control systems?

Foo: Yes, the Control Systems & Products Asia Center was opened in January as a regional resource to provide sales support, marketing, business development and customer training and technical support for the complete ABB control portfolio, from the complete 800xA DCS down to individual control system components. Like the CoE for Pulp and Paper, this was managed out of Sweden before being transferred to Singapore. The transfer reflects ABB’s commitment to be closeto the growing market in the region.

CE Asia: The process automation sector is very competitive, and many of your rivals have their Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.How does ABB stand out?

Foo: Singapore as a whole is a hub for the Process Automation businesses. Similarly, ABB Singapore is the process automation hub for ABB within the South Asia region, with extensive regional scopes of activities including two global centers in the areas of pulp & paper and marine businesses asI indicated earlier.

Here our key differentiation is through ABB’s unmatched total portfolio approach– being able to offer not just automation butpower technology as well. This simplifiesthings for the customer who can buy acomplete package of fully engineeredsolution and who also rely on us to do theproject management.

What also helps is having a very capable and experienced team of process automation professionals. Almost 40 percent of ABB Singapore staff has been here for more than 10 years, and this strong retention has served us well. It is also critical for our customers, who know they can rely on our technical expertise and deep industry specific application know-how and services.

CE Asia: ABB has Swiss-Swedish roots and is headquartered in Zurich. What elements of European culture are apparent in the Singaporeoperation?

Foo: ABB now has local operations in around 100 countries. And if you look at the ABB executive committee members, you see that out of the 11 there are nine different nationalities represented. And even here in Singapore we have Finn, German, Swede, French, Swiss nationalities working alongside the local staff. So I really do feel that ABB is a truly global company and that this mix ofcultures provides another real strength.

CE Asia: Do you subscribe to any particular management philosophy for getting the best out of yourpeople?

Foo: I think there is an elegance in simplicity – i.e. it’s not necessary to overly theorize or be too complex. Make people accountable, give them clear targets, respect their capability, provide them with support, have and show confidence that they will deliver.

One of ABB’s great attractions for any young person starting out in their career is that we believe in giving a very early start to increasingly higher responsibilities and accountability.

While we strive to be competitive, we expect all employees to uphold the highest standard of ethical behavior and integrity. ABB’s Code of Conduct goes beyond compliance with laws and regulations. Not just how we behave towards the outside world but also how we work together in ABB.

Health and safety is also an integral and important part of all our activities. I believe this adds a very personal dimension to ABB way of working and I fully subscribe to it and our employees, customers andcontractors alike appreciate it.

CE Asia: And some final thoughtson the outlook for ABB Singapore?

Foo: Our overall mission is to help our customers boost productivity while conserving energy. And my main task is to get the team here working together, because when we work together we can then be very strong in bringing our total portfolio to the market – we have seen the business grow annually in double digits growth over the last five years. And with no sign of the market weakening, our leading technology and being able to execute well, the future is very bright for the employee andthe company.