It was a pretty good year all in all for Brazilian (and Latin America) ERP leader, Totvs, at least on its home turf. Headline revenues for 2012 grew by 11% to R$1.41bn (c. £440m) essentially all organic. Operating profit grew faster – by 31% - boosting operating margins to 21.0% (2011: 17.7%). All good stuff.
But Totvs has yet to make any meaningful – indeed profitable – impact outside its home region (see Totvs dreams the global dream in the latest edition of BrazilViews). Revenues outside of LatAm grew by 22% to just R$20m (c. £6m) with EBITDA losses down 39% to ‘just’ R$9.5m. Management hopes to break even (at EBITDA level) in 2014.
The ‘problem’ is that Totvs looks more like a Sage than an SAP which makes internationalisation somewhat tougher. Just last week Totvs acquired a domestic ERP player (see Totvs boosts vertical ERP with PC Sistemas), very much in the Sage mould.
Totvs CEO Laercio Cosentino – who has now stepped down as chairman – seems dead set to play beyond LatAm and indeed beyond proprietary software-related services (they have a general ERP consultancy under the covers). I think there is some knitting that needs untangling first.
By the way, Totvs also runs its own start-up incubator, Totvs Ventures, which has just invested R$3.2m (£1m) for a 20% stake in Brazilian ‘cloud mobility platform’ uMove.me (great name!). Totvs aims to incorporate uMove’s technology in its products.