Recession or perestroika?
The crisis creates conditions for strengthening the positions of Russian companies operating in the field of high technology.
The next period of growth in the industrial automation market is over. This was stated by Lev Anzimirov, president of AdAstra Research Group, at the opening of the annual conference “Production Management in the Trace Mode System”.
The organizers of such traditional events do not ignore economic realities: the conference began not with the usual review of the development of technological capabilities and updates to the well-known supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, but with a discussion of the specifics of working in a crisis.
The company AdAstra, which specializes in developing software for automated process control systems, believes that the current situation left little chance for Russian manufacturers.
The increase in the volume of the process control system market was accompanied by an increase in business costs, reducing the competitiveness of domestic products. Such costs are associated with an increase in the cost of renting premises, the price of components, and an increase in wages that lags behind the increase in productivity.
According to Anzimirov, the strengthening of the ruble “did not bode well for the domestic innovative business, squeezed between rising costs and falling imports.”
The decline in activity in the industrial sector that began in 2008 forced enterprises to reconsider their investment strategy, take a more thoughtful approach to expenses and turn to products from domestic manufacturers. This is evidenced, in particular, by the increase in the number of AdAstra partners: since September, the ranks of integrators using Trace Mode have been replenished with a dozen companies.
The crisis thus creates conditions for strengthening the position of Russian companies operating in the field of high technologies, while at the same time stimulating an increase in the efficiency of their own businesses.
AdAstra, for example, reconsidered its relationships with component suppliers and, by optimizing the tariff plans used, reduced communication costs without compromising the quality of services.
Equipment manufacturers are also striving to optimize costs, which provides an opportunity to expand the OEM business by offering domestic products and increase sales of software licenses as part of hardware solutions.
For example, for ICP DAS WinPAC controllers, which are supplied by the Russian company IPC2U, the Micro Trace Mode 6 system has been released, which allows you to create a graphical operator interface directly in the controller itself, as well as Micro Trace Mode GSM/GPRS+ software, which provides support for wireless communications.
But, despite the new opportunities opening up for developers, the decline in the process control system market could not but affect the financial results of the year.
From 2005 to 2008, AdAstra’s average annual business growth was approximately 32%.
However, if in 2007 the increase in sales in Russia reached 36% (up to 20% of the company’s revenue comes from supplies abroad), then in 2008 sales remained at the level of the previous year.
Nevertheless, as planned (see “Thirty thousand on the horizon”, Computerworld Russia, No. 6, 2008), the number of Trace Mode installations in our country reached 30 thousand.
AdAstra believes that the new the capabilities of the release 6.06.2 of the Trace Mode system presented at the conference will contribute to the further growth of its implementation.
Among the added functions are drivers to support standard protocols for devices and telemechanics systems IEC 870-5-1001/102/103; interface for working with video systems used in security systems; introduction of support for information transfer via telephone and GSM modems into drivers for electricity meters; increasing the functionality of vector data processing. To attract attention to its solutions, AdAstra intends to increase marketing and advertising activity.
The company, according to its managers, has not yet resorted to staff reductions. “Now, perhaps, we will increase the number of qualified developers who previously simply had nowhere to get,” Anzimirov emphasized.