Early this month Nilfisk-Advance reported it had realised a 2010 revenue of AUD$1048 million (5,747 m DKK), up from 2009’s AUD$937 million, corresponding to organic growth of 7%. Operational EBITDA was AUD$111.6 million (612 m DKK), up from 2009’s AUD$85.6 million (469 m DKK), representing an operational EBITDA margin of 10.7% (2009 9.2%).
‘In 2010 Nilfisk-Advance reaped the reward for its rapid and effective response to the downturn in the world market in recent years. Labour adjustments and acceleration of a number of future oriented restructuring measures resulted in a stronger and more streamlined company,’ commented directors.
The relocation of Nilfisk’s production from Western Europe to Hungary was completed at the end of 2010. Transfer of production from the United States to Mexico is proceeding to plan and continues in 2011. The company expects these in progress relocations will lead to annual savings of more than 100 m DKK.
The savings are expected to impact fully from 2nd half 2012, but a large number will take effect already in 2011.
Nilfisk-Advance achieved a 7% organic growth in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and says it is gaining market shares.
Organic growth in the Americas was also 7%, which was in line with market development. Organic growth in the Asia/Pacific region was 9%.
‘With a strategic commitment to leadership in principal fast-growing markets, Nilfisk-Advance is strongly focused on the BRIC-MT nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico and Turkey). The company has sales subsidiaries in all these countries and strengthened its position in 2010 by acquiring the Brazilian producer Plataforma. In addition, strong increase in direct sales was achieved in Turkey and several new offices were set up in Russia.
Overall growth in 2010 in the BRIC-MT countries was just under 40%,’ the report noted.
Nilfisk is securing continued growth in sales to the contract cleaning segment while sales to the industrial segment recovered strongly in both mature and emerging markets. Sales to the European and US farming segments did not increase appreciably however, and towards the end of 2010 savings on public budgets in mature markets began impacting sales to schools, hospitals and local authorities.
R & D continues unabated
‘Development of new customer products and offers is key to Nilfisk-Advance and continued unabated in 2010. During the year, 38 new products and product versions were launched, including 10 floor-care units, 14 vacuums, six high-pressure cleaners and eight special-purpose products.
‘As part of the renewed focus on customer needs, a new customer-oriented development process was introduced, which as a central element will include extended use of qualitative and quantitative customer and market surveys. The aim is to make the new customer focus measurable from one product platform to the next,’ stated the annual report.
2010 saw widespread implementation of Nilfisk-Advance’s Ecoflex technology into the company’s floor-care programme. Ecoflex, released at Interclean 2010, provides an innovative approach to sustainable cleaning whereby cleaning is done with pure water where this will do the job, but at the press of a button the operator can switch briefly to detergent for tackling particularly heavy dirt.
‘Ecoflex ensures effective cleaning of all areas, with no difficult mechanical changeovers, while at the same time saving on resources. The result is optimum cleaning at the lowest price/cost combined with consideration for the environment,’ claimed Nilfisk.