Next month marks the arrival of the annual college basketball tournament that we all know as “March Madness.” The tournament will be the last go-round for Duke University Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is retiring at season’s end as men’s college basketball’s all-time winningest coach.
Krzyzewski also has a nickname: Coach K. With the end of the line in sight, a once-unthinkable debate has taken hold: Who is the greatest men’s college basketball coach of all-time, Coach K or John Wooden of UCLA? Coach K has the most wins. But Wooden, known also as The Wizard of Westwood, has the most championships. And the debate goes on.
Achievements in 2021
Unisys had an active 2021. Yet it’s one thing to take action. It’s another thing for actions to produce results. As Wooden once said, “Never mistake activity for achievement.”
We started the year by rolling out a new business strategy and operating model. We then hired several new leaders to help bring the strategy to fruition. Along the way we continued the development of higher-value and higher-margin solutions, significantly strengthened our balance sheet and made three acquisitions – the first three for our company in more than 10 years.
Unisys made measurable progress on our key operational and financial objectives during 2021. More specifically, we produced results, making advances on revenue, profit and cash flow, all in line with our guidance.
Our strategy is working, and each of our business units are contributing to our performance. In Cloud & Infrastructure, industry analysts are noticing our advancing cloud capabilities. We were recently named a “major player” globally in managed multi-cloud services by IDC. We were also named a “leader” in the U.S., U.K. and Brazil in ISG’s Provider Lens on public cloud solutions and services. So, too, are our clients. We recently signed a new-scope contract with a leader in the U.S. housing finance system to develop and implement cloud-native data pipeline solutions to increase agility and reduce time to market for data workloads in a highly controlled environment.
We are fortunate that both new and existing clients are taking advantage of our expanding capabilities. Full-year 2021 revenue for our Cloud & Infrastructure business unit grew 6.7% year over year, with cloud revenue specifically growing 22% year over year.
Surprised that Unisys is a player in cloud? You shouldn’t be. We are acting. And we are achieving.
Even The Wizard of Westwood might be proud.
Momentum for 2022
So where does Unisys go from here? Our investments in solutions, go-to-market and workforce management planning have positioned us to advance our momentum in 2022.
Some of those ambitions rest on our investments in Digital Workplace, another of our primary areas of focus. We have established our base portfolio of integrated experience offerings, and our Digital Workplace Solutions business is already seeing traction in the market with wins with both existing and new clients. A good example is an agreement we signed in the fourth quarter of 2021 with a leading global real estate services firm. We will implement an employee experience platform project to allow the organization to drive organizational transformation, moving from a decentralized model to a new, global standardized model that simplifies how employees get the services they need, improving satisfaction and HR efficiency.
Ultimately, our ambitions rest most on our investments in our greatest strength: our people. A core part of our overall strategy, just as important as aligning our solutions to attract and retain clients, is to align our workplace (virtual and/or physical) to attract and retain the best associates. Creating enriching experiences for current and prospective associates by providing opportunities for job rotations, reskilling and upskilling all contribute to establishing Unisys as a best place to work and an employer of choice. We are doing all of that. Never in my time at Unisys have there been more opportunities, for both technical and leadership skills.
Ours is a company on the move, and the Unisys of 2022 will be better than the Unisys of 2021. Nice to be part of this journey. Best of luck to Coach K as he nears the end of his.