Experian 2008 Annual Report Download - page 9

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Experian Annual Report 2008 7
Financial statements
65 – 144
Governance
38 – 64
Introduction
2 – 5
Business review
Chief Executive’s review
Business review
Chief Executive’s review
Over the past year we have
made significant progress to
enable us to continue to drive
profitable growth
Managing our business in
more challenging times
In January, we took action to ensure
that we had the right cost structure
in place for the prevailing business
environment. We announced a
programme of cost-efficiency
measures, to deliver annualised
savings of US$80m. In response to
continuing challenging conditions,
we have since identified additional
opportunities and have raised
our estimate for annualised cost
savings to US$110m. We now
expect in the region of US$50m to
be realised in the year ending 31
March 2009, with the full benefit
thereafter. One-off restructuring
costs associated with achieving
these savings are now expected to
be in the region of US$140m.
These additional measures include
further restructuring of core
credit and marketing activities and
infrastructure consolidation.
Evolving our strategy
At Experian, we are fortunate to have
many opportunities to drive growth,
underpinned by global expansion in
demand for credit risk management
and high RoI marketing. We have
refined our strategic focus and have
adopted a framework to:
Focus on data and analytics.
l
Drive profitable growth. l
Optimise capital efficiency. l
We have incorporated these three
elements in the recent execution of
our strategy.
Focus on data and analytics
Our core expertise is ownership
and operation of comprehensive
databases around the world and
enhancing the value of data through
the application of proprietary
analytics and software. Our
businesses are characterised by
their market-leading positions,
high barriers to entry, global reach
and potential for long-term growth,
as well as their attractive financial
characteristics.
We review the composition of our
portfolio against these criteria
on a regular basis. As previously
announced, PriceGrabber and
Experian’s transaction processing
activities are under strategic review.
We have also indicated previously
that our acquisition strategy will
focus on opportunities that will bring
access to new data and analytics.
Drive profitable growth
Over the past year we have made
significant progress to enable us to
continue to drive profitable growth.
We aim to achieve this through
expansion of our global reach, a
commitment to innovation and by
driving operational excellence.
Action in the year included:
The acquisition of a 70% stake in
l
Serasa, which provides access to
the emerging credit economy in
Brazil, with significant opportunity
to introduce value-added products.
Expansion of our infrastructure in
l
Asia Pacific, which has contributed
to the success of our Decision
Analytics activities in the region.
Further progress in new vertical
l
markets, with exciting new
opportunities emerging in the UK
public sector, for example.
Investment in new sources of data,
l
such as Visa transaction data,
and the acquisition of Hitwise,
which extends our position in new
marketing channels.
Development of new products
l
in Consumer Direct for fraud
prevention and identity protection.
Investment in new analytics
l
activities, for example through
the acquisition of Tallyman,
which extends our presence in
collections software.
Investment in low cost development
l
and delivery centres in Chile, India
and Bulgaria.
In the year ending 31 March 2009,
we plan to invest through the
income statement at a rate similar
to the prior year in new products,
geographies and our people.