Indra, first european company with major R&D investment in its sector

Indra, the premier IT company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe, is the first European company with major R&D investment in the Information Technologies (Computer Services) sector according to the Industrial R&D Scoreboard report released by the European commission last week. The company moved 13 places up since last year and has become the second Spanish company with major investment in this sector with a 7% over its revenue figure, well above the average of Spanish companies (0.8%), European companies (2.7%) and USAs companies (4.5%).

According to the report (http://iri.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports.htm) Indra invested euros 166 M in R&D in 2008, 7.3% more than the previous year. With these figures, Indra ranks 103rd among European companies with more investment in this area. Within the Computer Services subsector, Indra appears on top of the list and well above the second company of the ranking, Fujitsu Siemens, who invested euros 134 M, that is 7.6% less than in 2007; and quite ahead the next two companies: Wincor Nixdorf (104,5 M euros) and TietoEnator (57,9 M euros).

The report also mentions that Indra’s investment increased by 24.6% annually in the last three years. This figure illustrates the company’s constant efforts, far higher than the average of the main companies of the sector, whose investment increased by 11.1% annually.

The study, which analyses 1, 000 major investors in the European Union in R&D and compares them to the top 1, 000 leading companies in this area, includes 21 Spanish companies. Investment growth by European companies (8.8%) remains higher than USA’s (8.6%) for one more year.

Leaders in innovation

As a leading company in innovation, Indra is engaged in important R&D and innovation programmes not only in Spain but also in Europe. Regarding Europe, the company is leading two R&D programmes which are essential in the creation of the Single European Sky within the SESAR programme. SESAR is one of the most ambitious initiatives by the EU that aims to define and implement a technology that is capable of managing air traffic of all European countries. Indra is also leading a project in the security sector and plays an active role in the SOFIA project, which has recently been chosen the best European R&D project in the area of embedded systems.

In addition, Indra has a leading position in the CENIT programme of the Spanish government and is present in eight of the projects. Among them Indra co-leads Oasis, a development destined to run safe, smart and sustainable motorways. It leads ITECBAN, a future and thorough banking management system as well as the Hesperia project which aims to develop technologies for comprehensive security in public spaces.

Besides this, the company is active in R&D projects promoted by the Plan Avanza of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce. Within this framework the company leads Tratamiento 2.0 to create a generic technology platform that integrates applications for smart management of medical treatments.

Sustainability together with innovation skills Indra’s capacity to innovate is the core of its corporate responsibility and sustainability as a company. In this sense, last year, the company was acknowledged by the Swiss rating agency SAM in cooperation with PriceWaterHouseCooper as one of the best-positioned companies to face future challenges and was included once more in the Dow Jones World Index and Dow Jones Sustainability Index where it has been quoting since 2006.

Indra has agreements with more than 100 universities and research centres with the objective of becoming an international reference in cooperation and in university-company technology transfer.

As part of its Corporate responsibility the company has created research Chairs- Accessible Technologies Chairs- in cooperation with Adecco Foundation for the development of solutions that make technologies accessible for people with disabilities.

Indra is the premier Information Technology company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe and Latin America. It is ranked as the second European company in its sector according to stock market capitalisation, and also the second Spanish company with the most investment in R&D. In 2008, revenues reached € 2,380 M, of which a third came from the international market. The company employs more than 29,000 professionals and has clients in more than 100 countries.