Sustainable Growth Strategies in the Canadian Space Sector
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Sustainable Growth Strategies in the Canadian Space Sector Sustainable Growth Strategies in the Canadian Space Sector Submitted by: Ian Christison Applied Project (APRJ-699) Word Count 20,187 Academic Coach: Conor VibertCarroll Submission Date: March 31, 2008 Assignment Number: 3 Sustainable Growth Strategies in the Canadian Space Sector 2 Table of Contents 1 Introduction....................................................................................................4 1.1 Defining the Problem ..............................................................................7 1.2 Problem Issues.......................................................................................7 1.3 Topic Definition.......................................................................................8 1.4 Project Definition Literature Search ........................................................8 1.5 Research Effective Reading Method and Literature Review...................8 1.6 Project Challenges and Focus Strategy..................................................9 2 Literature Review.........................................................................................10 2.1 Research Questions .............................................................................10 2.2 Research Boundaries ...........................................................................10 2.3 Alternative Courses of Action to be Evaluated......................................10 2.4 Research users ....................................................................................11 2.5 Introduction to the Research Approach ................................................11 2.5.1 Research Purpose.........................................................................11 2.5.2 What research should be done?....................................................11 2.5.3 How should the research be designed to help answer the research question(s)?.................................................................................................11 2.5.4 What will be done with the research output? .................................12 3 Hypotheses..................................................................................................13 4 Methodology ................................................................................................15 5 Results Discussion ......................................................................................18 5.1 Historical RBV Analysis 2002-2006 ......................................................19 5.1.1 Physical .........................................................................................20 5.1.2 Financial........................................................................................23 5.1.3 Human...........................................................................................28 5.1.4 Organizational ...............................................................................31 5.1.5 Historical Weighted Scorecard Summary ......................................34 5.1.6 Historical Weighted Scorecard Hypothesis Test............................37 5.2 Future Projected RBV Analysis 2007-2011 ..........................................38 5.2.1 Physical .........................................................................................40 5.2.2 Financial........................................................................................43 5.2.3 Human...........................................................................................47 5.2.4 Organizational ...............................................................................49 5.2.5 Future Weighted Scorecard Summary ..........................................52 5.2.6 Future Weighted Scorecard Hypothesis Test ................................54 6 Conclusion...................................................................................................56 6.1 Summary and Call to Action .................................................................59 6.2 Implications for Managers.....................................................................61 6.3 Shortcomings........................................................................................63 6.4 Suggestions for Future Work................................................................65 7 References ..................................................................................................69 Sustainable Growth Strategies in the Canadian Space Sector 3 List of Tables Table 1 Resource Based Viewpoint (RBV) Metrics.............................................17 Table 2 RBV Weighted Average over 2002-2006 ..............................................36 Table 3 Human Weighted Average 2002-2006..................................................36 Table 4 Historical RBV Hypothesis Test Results ...............................................37 Table 5 RBV Weighted Average over 2007-2011 ...............................................54 Table 6 Future RBV Hypothesis Test Results....................................................55 Table 7 RBV SWOT Analysis ............................................................................56 List of Figures Figure 1 Market Share by Revenue 2006 ..........................................................19 Figure 2 Average Gross Margin 2002-2006.......................................................21 Figure 3 Average Total Asset Turnover Ratio 2002-2006..................................22 Figure 4 Average Revenue Growth 2002-2006 .................................................24 Figure 5 Average Earnings per Share 2002-2006..............................................25 Figure 6. Average Price Earnings Ratio 2002-2006...........................................27 Figure 7 Average Revenue per Employee 2002-2006.......................................29 Figure 8 Patents per Employee .........................................................................30 Figure 9 Average R&D Expense as % of Revenues 2002-2006........................32 Figure 10 Average Inventory Turnover Ratio 2002-2006...................................33 Figure 11 Historical RBV Weighted Scorecard Summary 2002-2006................35 Figure 12 Market Share by Revenue 2011 ........................................................38 Figure 13 Projected Average Gross Margin 2007-2011.....................................40 Figure 14 Projected Average Asset Turnover Ratio 2007-2011.........................42 Figure 15 Projected Revenue Growth 2007-2011..............................................43 Figure 16 Projected EPS 2007-2011 .................................................................44 Figure 17 Projected PE Ratio 2007-2011 ..........................................................46 Figure 18 Projected Average Revenues per Employee 2007-2011 ...................48 Figure 19 Projected Average R&D Revenues per Employee 2007-2011...........50 Figure 20 Projected Average Inventory Turnover 2007-2011 ............................51 Figure 21 Future RBV Weighted Scorecard 2007-2011.....................................53 Sustainable Growth Strategies in the Canadian Space Sector 4 1 Introduction ComDev is a Large Scale Enterprise (LSE) international aerospace company based in Cambridge Ontario specializing in the manufacture of equipment and sub systems for space applications. ComDev employs over nine hundred employees worldwide. Six hundred work in the Cambridge plant while the remainder work in plants in the UK, US, China and Ottawa. ComDev was established in 1974 to supply the niche market of high performance output multiplexer (Mux) hardware requirements for communications satellites. Since that time the business has sustained organic growth within its core business, added capacity and diversified into Switches for beam switching networks, Space Electronics payload solutions and other related products. According to ComDev’s annual reports listed on SEDAR (2006), revenues were $153.8M, up 23.8% from 124.2M in 2005, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.95% over the past five years. Strong growth in civil and military product revenues exceeded commercial products for the first time in 2006. ComDev’s year over year growth objectives over the long term are 10%-15%. Growth strategies are focused on limiting risk and include supplying existing product to new customers, new products to existing customers and market development by leveraging existing capability, Christison, (2008). Past diversification strategies at ComDev included investment in Broadband and Wireless products in the early part of the new millennium which resulted in a write down of $11.9 M in 2002 when the broadband market collapsed, expected sales were not realized and the divisions were divested. Strategic investment in the Ottawa Space Science group from MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) in FY06 resulted in an outflow of $5.2M for the acquisition and a corresponding increase in backlog of $18M flowing from future contract commitments to the James Web Space Telescope project with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and NASA. This merger also positioned ComDev in a more strategic position in the Space Science Instrument food chain by moving from a sub system provider to a system integrator. However, higher levels of product integration require new and improved engineering and contract management skills to keep projects under control and on schedule. Initial cost overruns indicate an additional learning curve as these skills are developed, resulting in higher than