Safety – Growth initiatives lead to exceptional 2023 results
Continuing its strategy of bringing value to customers with product innovation, global expertise, local support and increased competitiveness through operational excellence, the Safety Business Unit generated strong sales and profit growth in 2023. Safety is also expected to grow further in 2024.
The Safety Business Unit significantly increased revenue in all regions last year. Benefitting from our ongoing growth initiatives as well as our market leadership position, the Safety Business Unit was well positioned to capture further market share as our targeted industries continue to grow, and customers are continuing to invest in modernizing and expanding their plants.
The success of the Safety Business Unit growth initiatives was evident with record sales and profitability achieved by the team in 2023. In this context, we again realized double-digit revenue growth of 11.5 percent compared to 2022 along with a solid order backlog going into 2024.
“ Safety’s product strategy has resulted in innovations in all market segments, offering our customers added value.”
and Member of the Executive Board
(since April 1, 2024)
Safety’s market leadership
As the leader in our market segments, a key aspect of Safety’s long-term growth strategy is to bring the most value to our customers. Recent innovative product developments such as the eSUPPRESSOR® enabled Safety to secure six major projects in 2023, all over 1 million each and totaling over ten million euros. Products also released during the year include the IsoDisc® valve, which significantly expands our portfolio in explosion decoupling systems, and a high temperature spark detector developed to meet the needs of one of the world’s largest food manufacturers. This industry- leading technology together with our technical expertise, customer focus, and operational excellence, supports Safety’s competitive position and achievement of an 80 percent project win ratio.
The “Grow Asia” initiative was also a key success factor in 2023. Continuing to focus on channel and market development within the region resulted in 60 percent revenue growth for the Explosion Protection market segment and 29 percent for Safety overall. This includes solid results in battery energy storage systems (BESS) with multiple serial orders received. Production localization also reached milestones with the newly opened Changzhou plant producing for local market and intercompany customers. Safety’s key account initiative supported the APAC teams efforts to secure contracts with a Korean multinational to protect their plants in China, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Long-term growth strategy
The Safety Business Unit’s goal for 2024 is to exceed last year’s performance by continuing to implement our wellestablished strategic plan, which includes introduction of market-driven products, targeting of growth markets, further operational excellence initiatives, and anticipated results from M&A activities. Safety’s product strategy calls for continuous development of new technologies within our Explosion Protection, E&G and Static Grounding market segments. New product introductions will include an enhanced IV8 flameless vent for bucket elevators, the EX4000 control unit which will complement the SmartDS® intelligent detection, and eSUPPRESSOR® products. Research into solutions for hazards associated with the growth of renewable energy will continue with expansion of our BESS vent line and a clear strategy to adapt our E&G products to meet the challenge of hydrogen fuels.
Focus on the stability and efficiency of the company’s internal and external supply chain will continue to be a priority as well as product lifecycle management to reduce inventories. The Business Unit will continue to fully support HOERBIGER’s sustainability strategy goals.
Following the 2023 Voice for Excellence survey, Safety will develop and implement actions in response to respondent feedback. Furthermore, the Business Unit announced a new management structure for 2024 to ensure that Safety is properly aligned to deliver value to our customers and to streamline and simplify our organizational structure.