Schneider Electric’s head office in France has announced that despite deteriorating global business in the latter part of 2008, it is confident of meeting its sales target for the year, but foresees a similar difficult business climate for 2009.
According to an online report from Reuters, Schneider Electric global chief executive, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, said the company is “very confident” of meeting its 2008 sales growth target of 5.5 per cent.
“We are expecting 2009 to be in the same kind of trend (as 2008), at least in the beginning… But we are prepared for this new level (of economic activity),” Reuters quoted Tricoire as saying at an economic conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The comment follows news that Schneider Electric cute its 2008 full-year sales growth target to 5.5 per cent from 8 per cent the previous year, to take into account the troubling global climate.
“I’m optimistic about large parts of our business,” Tricoire told Reuters.
The local Schneider Electric head office has recently re-structured its business model to more closely mirror its global counterpart and to better serve its Australian customers, forming three pillars — Automation, Power, and Installation Systems & Control (ICS).