To kick off 2017 and set the path for continued success, Ingram Micro held its Global Executive Kickoff event January 23-27 in Irvine, Calif. The event brought together leadership from around the globe to review our accomplishments from the past year, reflect on areas for improvement and commit to the actions we all need to take to drive improvement in ourselves, our teams and throughout our business.
Many of those actions are built upon five important behaviors:
- Courage – Embrace change; show courage and make difficult decisions.
- Accountability – Recognize that accountability may start at the top, but we are all responsible for our actions and results.
- Entrepreneurship – Reinforce a competitive, entrepreneurial spirit as you determine the best way to deliver on your business plans and objectives.
- Alignment – When making decisions, think long-term on how those choices or actions line up with the goals of our other businesses.
- Communication – Talk to one another often, share your accomplishments and your disappointments. Every interaction is an opportunity to improve and learn.
CEO Alain Monié asked for all associates to make these behaviors part of their daily interactions with their teams, customers and partners. An entrepreneurial attitude, “can do now” culture and a Lean approach to our business were all topics during the event. Alain also highlighted the importance of continuing to operate with the utmost integrity and maintaining our high operational and ethical standards in everything we do, including in ensuring the accuracy of our financial reporting.
At the Kickoff event, we also celebrated superb financial achievement by several countries in 2016 with the awarding by CEO Alain Monié of the coveted country Performance Cups. Countries were divided into three groups based on revenue size and market dynamics and the winners were those delivering the best average performance over 5 categories covering year-over-year growth in revenue, operating income and return on invested capital (ROIC) . The achievements by the United States (group 1 winner), New Zealand (group 2 winner), and Colombia (group 3 winner) are particularly impressive given our worldwide financial performance in 2016 fell short of most of our goals.
Each of these countries generated operating margin well above 2% for the year, with Colombia hitting double digits and achieving the highest operating margin of any country in 2016. New Zealand and Colombia each grew operating income by very strong double digits, and the U.S. delivered an outstanding operating income performance, contributing more than half of what the entire company produced in 2016. Each of these countries also produced an excellent return on invested capital, considerably exceeding their average cost of capital. On the revenue front, Colombia grew more than 80% in 2016 driven by increases across all product lines. New Zealand had strong share gains in its technology solutions business and rapid growth in lifecycle services and cloud, resulting in greater than 15% revenue growth for the year. The U.S. brought in $14 billion in revenue for 2016, an increase of 2%, as the country benefited from a resurgence in demand for PCs.
Below you will find the 2016 Performance Cup rankings by Group.
Our financial focus in 2017 is for every country to maximize revenue growth and net income dollars, while delivering a solid return on equity. The country chief executives were tasked with significantly improving each country’s financial performance over 2016. Our country chief executives have likely already tasked their teams – each of you – to focus on these important metrics and do everything they can to bring home a Performance Cup in 2017! It will be exciting to see how the race to the top progresses this year and we will provide a quarterly update on our country group leaders in our newsletters.