Boeing 2007 Annual Report Download - page 6

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3
W. James McNerney, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
To the Shareholders
and Employees of
The Boeing Company:
From this company’s beginning, we
have directed our passion, precision
and innovation into our products,
services, customers and citizenship.
On that foundation, we are pursuing
one big, overarching goal. We aim to
be the world’s strongest, best and
best-integrated aerospace company—
for today and tomorrow. Measured
against that goal, 2007 stands out
as a year of significant—and
accelerating—progress.
We achieved record financial perfor-
mance, which reflects the potent
combination of good top-line growth
and strong gains in productivity. Total
revenues rose to an all-time high of
$66.4 billion. For the first time ever,
both of our core businesses—Boeing
Commercial Airplanes and Boeing
Integrated Defense Systems— simulta-
neously achieved double-digit operating
margins. Gains in productivity and
performance in existing programs
contributed significantly to earnings
and helped offset additional investment
in key growth programs. Our cash flow
went from strong to even stronger—
increasing from $7.5 billion in 2006
to $9.6 billion in 2007.
We also had our best year ever in cap-
turing new business and adding to a
backlog that now totals almost one
third of a
trillion
dollars— or just about
five times our total revenues in 2007.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes had
spectacular success in landing 1,423
airplane orders during 2007, reaching
more than 1,000 orders for an unprece-
dented third consecutive year and set-
ting a Boeing record for total orders in
a single year. Commercial airplane
orders make up $255 billion of Boeing’s
$327 billion total backlog. Meanwhile,
Integrated Defense Systems won nine
out of 11 strategically important com-
petitions in 2007— an outstanding
success rate. IDS is among the indus-
try leaders in profitability and holds a
healthy $72 billion backlog.
I attribute this success to the people
of Boeing who continuously improved
their teams’ execution, productivity and
quality of work, doing so with the
utmost integrity. Without incremental
improvements generated by thousands
upon thousands of Boeing employees
last year, we would not have met what
was— to be sure— a very challenging
business plan. I am exceedingly proud
of this team for displaying the courage,
commitment, integrity and account-
ability that it takes to learn, share, grow
and improve.