InformationWeek

an Roberts is bullish on the prospects this year for his company, PMI Group Inc. Despite the doom and gloom cast by lethargic economies here and abroad, the San Francisco mortgage insurer, of which Roberts is CIO, has seen its business buoyed by the large numbers of new and refinanced mortgages being generated by some of the lowest interest rates in 30 years. Last year, PMI Group had $762.6 million in revenue, up 13.8% from $670.1 million in 1999.

The growth is adding fuel to PMI Group's overseas expansion. In February, the company started doing business in the European Union through a wholly owned indirect subsidiary in Dublin, Ireland, PMI Mortgage Insurance Company Ltd. It's also extending its business into Australia, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.

Roberts isn't alone in his optimism, according to InformationWeek Research's Global IT Strategies 2001 study, released this week. Three-quarters of the 894 business and IT executives surveyed, representing businesses in all four corners of the world, anticipate revenue growth at their companies this year. Only 12% of the survey respondents report that their employers are preparing for a revenue decline, and the other 13% expect revenue to be on par with last year.

PMI Group is unusual in its aggressive expansion plans. Less than a quarter of survey respondents in North and South America view expanding business operations beyond their home turf as a strategic business initiative this year. European and Pacific Rim respondents are only slightly more interested. That may be because global operation is already a fact of life for many of these companies. Almost two-thirds of the North American and Pacific Rim companies and half the European companies in InformationWeek Research's Web-based study operate in more than one country. Close to a third of the North American companies and 17% of those in Europe have operations in 13 or more countries.

Improving customer service is the primary business initiative all over. As for IT initiatives, improving customer-service and-support infrastructure scores highest in North America and the Pacific Rim; in Europe, it's improving Web-site capacity and performance; and in South America, it's improving network security. That may be why, collectively, three in five companies will increase IT spending this year.

The imperative for E-business still ranks high on most companies' agendas (see story, "Customer Centricity Goes Global"). Ford Motor Co. does business in more than 120 countries, and in many of those countries, the automaker has established an online presence. John Larson, Ford's director of IT for Asia Pacific and South Africa, says Ford's business-to-consumer Internet strategy is vital there. For example, consumers in India who can afford the high price tag for automobiles are also likely to have computers, and Ford wants to give them a robust online shopping option. Larson says Indians spend about six months and look at as many as 20 Web sites before buying. "We want our customers to be able to use the Internet to understand what our products are," he says.

The same holds true for South Korea, where Ford is hopeful people will start shopping on the Internet so it can save the $2 million to $4 million it would take to set up individual auto dealerships.

But there's uncertainty about just how a company's online business-to-business or business-to-consumer operations, even if successful at home, will play overseas. While PMI Group earns almost a quarter of its revenue from electronic sources, all of that's generated in the United States, because other countries where the mortgage insurer operates aren't yet set up for E-business, CIO Roberts says.

According to the InformationWeek survey, North American operations are pulling in the most money from domestic E-business operations, followed by those in the Pacific Rim, Europe, and South America. Specifically, North American companies say they earn 33% of their domestic revenue from E-business transactions. That figure is 30% for Pacific Rim companies, 25% for European companies, and 22% for South American companies. North America also leads the way in terms of revenue from international E-business. North American companies say they earned 10% of E-business revenue from outside their home turf, followed by European companies with 8%, and South American and Pacific Rim companies with 7%.