Powel has decided to strengthen its range of activities by relocating Powel Gemini AS and the power grid information activities of Powel ASA in a single unit under joint management. This will be done by merging Powel Gemini AS into Powel ASA and incorporating it into the company’s Utility Division. The merged division will employ a total of 70 staff and will be led by Steinar Muri.
Powel’s company management regards the reorganisation as a natural reinforcement and professionalisation of the company’s largest business area. It will help to ensure further growth and the wider use of the company’s technologies in both existing and new markets.
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Powel reinforces its organisation
Powel has decided to reinforce its range of activities in power-grid information systems by integrating all the functions of its wholly-owned subsidiary Powel Gemini AS and the activities of Powel’s Utility Division and placing them under a single management.
Powel’s Utility Division, which is headquartered in Trondheim, develops, supplies and maintains the NetBas software system for around one hundred energy supply and distribution companies in the Nordic region and the USA. Powel Gemini’s head office is in Bergen, where it develops, supplies and maintains applications for use in the municipal services sector, focusing on the water supply network. The company also enjoys a significant degree of penetration in the surveying and construction sector.
Both units deal to some extent with similar problems, both utilise the same technology, and both have ambitions as regards international growth. With effect from October 1, the units will be re-structured as the larger of Powel’s two operational divisions; the new “Utility Division” will have a staff of about 70.
The motivation underlying the merger is as follows:
- No direct internal savings are anticipated, but there will be increased professionalisation of product management and management functions. Increased capacity will improve flexibility and better utilisation of the combined resources of the two units. Moreover, there is no doubt that Powel will be strengthened by gathering its IT expertise and competence in sytems for , energy distribution, water, waste-water, telecommunications (fibre-optics), district heating and gas into a single group, in which colleagues can exchange top-level expertise and inspiration among themselves and obtain knowledge and impulses from an expanded clientele.
- Externally, a very large number of Norwegian and Scandinavian utilities and municipalities have already documented and digitalised all relevant data for their systems, for use in both analyses and geographical presentations. A challenge for the future will be to develop applications that will make such data even more useful for our clients. This will be a matter of access to, and user-friendliness of, data, and of exploiting existing information as support for the many decision-making and work processes that comprise efficient management and operation of technical systems on a day-to-day basis. In this context, Powel wishes to be a leader in the development of systems for planning, designing, monitoring and control, maintenance and work steering, based on a continuously updated database for such systems. A growing group of customers from our current base of around 1000 public- and private-sector clients in Norway and abroad will experience the advantages of such systems via new products that will offer improved functionality and more professional support and follow-up.
On October, 1, Steinar Muri, who is currently managing director of Powel Gemini AS, will assume the leadership of the combined unit, which will be known as Powel’s Utility Division. The company’s other operational unit, the Power Division, will continue to operate as before under the leadership of Tom Røtting. On the same date, Per Chr. Gomnæs, who has led Powel’s Utility Division since the beginning of this year, will move to a full-time position in the Group’s staff as director of business development.
Powel’s company management regards the reorganisation as a natural reinforcement and professionalisation of the company’s largest business area, which will help to ensure further growth and the wider use of Powel’s technological solutions in new markets.
Powel ASA, October 1, 2005
Jon Einar Værnes, managing director