Strategy and Sustainability
Focus on sustainable growth
Sheet metal has a bright future and promising growth potential. Bystronic offers innovative solutions today for the sheet metal processing of tomorrow. With the Strategy 2025, we intend to further advance our market position: last year, we laid the groundwork to strengthen our presence in the local markets and in the service business. Simultaneously, with software and automation solutions for the smart factory, we are expanding our portfolio in a targeted manner – and we are focusing even more closely on sustainability.
In the 2021 financial year, we successfully completed the transformation from Conzzeta to Bystronic. The former conglomerate has been transformed into an independent, pure-play company that has successfully established itself on the capital market. The Bystronic shares have been traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange since May.
This has raised Bystronic’s profile: investors now recognize us as a technology group that ranks among the global leaders in the sheet metal processing industry. Our intelligent solutions enable our customers to fully automate their sheet metal processing workflows: our portfolio permits the entire process chain to be networked – from the warehouse to cutting and bending right through to downstream processes. Among other things, this is made possible thanks to the associated software and automation solutions.
Our market: sheet metal processing has a bright future
Be it the agricultural, construction, automotive, or food industry – virtually every industrial sector relies on sheet metal. The material is tried and tested and offers numerous advantages: metals such as steel or aluminum are inexpensive, robust, easy to handle, durable and recyclable. Sheet metal will undoubtedly remain one of the key building blocks of future industry. New coal- and fossil-free processes are making steel production much more sustainable and dramatically reducing the carbon footprint.
The sheet metal processing market is very dynamic and has enormous growth potential: the global steel output is constantly increasing. At the same time, the production environment of sheet metal processing companies is transforming. Technologies such as the fiber laser, end-to-end automation systems, and intelligent software are massively accelerating the material flow. The future lies in the fully automated and networked factory. With our solutions, we are committed to pioneering the rapid advancement of the vision of the smart factory.
Our Strategy 2025: regionalization and world-class service
Bystronic’s has ambitious growth targets: we aim to achieve organic sales growth of more than 5% per year until 2025 and industry-leading profitability with an EBIT margin in excess of 12%. By 2025, our return on capital employed (RONOA) is to exceed 25%.
We intend to achieve these targets firstly by increasing our focus on regionalization. We are committed to being as close as possible to our customers everywhere around the globe in order to provide them with local support. Within the framework of the Strategy 2025, we are further strengthening our position in the regional markets in order to respond even more effectively to the requirements of the individual regions.
Secondly, we are investing in the service business and expanding our teams in this field. The service business is very profitable: in 2021, it generated sales of CHF 205 million. By 2025, we aim to increase this to CHF 330 million. One way to achieve this is our modular and globally standardized service program, which significantly increases recurring and value-added sales. Since its launch in early 2021, we have been selling more than 90% of our new machines with a service contract.
Bystronic “Strategy 2025”
Our portfolio: innovative solutions for the smart factory
We rely on our innovative portfolio as one of the main drivers of our future growth. 35 years after its founding, Bystronic’s innovative drive remains steadfast. Today, we generate almost half of our sales with products that have been on the market for less than three years. We consistently place our customers’ needs at the center of the innovation process.
Our customers are facing increasingly tough competition: more competitors, smaller batch sizes, shorter lead times, faster production – all while delivering the highest quality. The key to meeting these challenges lies in automation. With the complete takeover of the Italian automation specialist Antil, we are now a market leader in this field. In addition, software is playing an ever more decisive role. This is why Bystronic took over the Spanish software specialist Kurago in 2021. Together we developed software that enables our customers to control all their manufacturing processes. In January 2022, our Chief Digital Officer Alberto Martinez was appointed to the Executive Committee, further strengthening our focus on software solutions and digitalization.
In addition, we are continuing to develop our portfolio in a targeted manner to address specific market segments and regions. In order to more effectively meet the requirements of the individual markets, our market regions are being given more freedom in product development. Our strategic focus also entails an expansion into additional sheet metal processing applications such as punching or welding. We are already engaging in strategic partnerships in these fields, for example with the German welding specialist Cloos.
Our mindset: focus on sustainability
Sustainability is the foundation upon which we run our company. Bystronic has integrated ecological and social criteria as well as responsible corporate governance principles into its strategy process and resolutely implements these initiatives. Consequently, the topic also plays a key role in the Strategy 2025. In 2021, we dealt intensively with our sustainability strategy and carried out a materiality assessment. Subsequently, we defined five sustainability topics (Energy & Climate Change, Resource Efficiency, Circular Economy & Zero Waste, Innovation, and Talent Attraction) on the basis of which we will publish our first dedicated sustainability report in accordance with GRI standards.
In view of our industry and our strategy, we are convinced that these are the fields in which we can generate the greatest impact. All of our subsidiaries have defined initiatives and KPIs for each of the five sustainability topics. In addition, we have evaluated our carbon output at the local level and are thus well on track to improving our global climate footprint. We will report on this for the first time in our Sustainability Report 2021.
In addition to our own footprint, we also want to help our customers improve their sustainability: with energy-efficient solutions, we can achieve a major impact that extends beyond our own operations. This is why we also place sustainability at the center of our product development. In this way, we are pioneering the transformation of the sheet metal sector into a clean, environmentally friendly industry.