Key changes in System Integrator Giants rankings year-over-year proves economic growth in global manufacturing.
If you needed any further affirmation than global manufacturing continues to drive overall economic growth, the changes at the top of the 2018 System Integrator Giants list ought to provide the final proof.
There was a change at the top of the 2018 SI Giants list, as Leidos more than doubled its reported system integration income in the past year from $160 million to more than $368 million. They took over the top spot from Wood (formerly Wood Group), but Wood still increased system integration revenue more than 20% to $205 million.
The newcomer on this year’s SI Giants list was India-based L&T Electrical & Automation, which reported revenues of $119 million to rank third on this year’s list of the top 100 system integration companies. In this year’s rankings, 15 of the top 100 companies are outside the United States, including eight from Canada, three from India and one each from Russia, Turkey, Brazil and Serbia.
Another newcomer to the top 10 is RoviSys from Ohio, which reported $98 million in system integration revenue to rank fourth. The overall top-10 rankings show a system integration revenue increase of a stunning 53%—from $804 million last year to $1.228 billion this year.
Another indication of growth can be found at the end of this year’s SI Giants list. The 100th-ranked company, Automation Control & Technology Services of Fresno, Cal., reported system integration revenue of $2.2 million. That’s about double last year’s final entrant in the SI Giants list.
Overall, the 2018 SI Giants account for $2.5 trillion in revenue, and more than half of the companies on this year’s list (54%) had revenues above $10 million last year.
Even as growth continues in this industry, challenges remain. Concerns about the economy, the recruiting and training of young engineers and the impact of those issues on their ability to find new clients all rank at the top of concerns for SI Giants. But this group also continues to invest in their people and in the industry: nine in 10 attend Webcasts during working hours and attend trade shows and conferences, and 89% provide paid professional training for their employees. Three-quarters of the SI Giants offer mentoring for employees, both formally (1:1 pairings) and informally (brown-bag lunch and learn events).
More than 60% of all SI Giants are members of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) and one-third are CSIA-certified.
The food and beverage industry, one of the bellwethers of manufacturing, accounts for more than half the time and attention from the SI Giants, as 56% have projects in that sector. Chemicals and petrochemicals (32%), Pharmaceuticals (25%), water and wastewater (24%) and Biotechnology (18%) are the other top industries served by this year’s SI Giants.
One final note: Because the timing and impact of the Global System Integrator Report has evolved over the past few years, CFE Media made a change in this year’s SI Giants list. In order to align it with all of the other recognition we have in this issue, we have designated this year’s rankings as the 2018 SI Giants. We wanted to inform those companies who use this ranking each year about this change.
We look forward to submission for the 2019 System Integrator Giants rankings, and thank all the participating companies for their submissions.
