NCR chief: Future of company lies in multi-function ATMs

Hard-working CEO tries to make NCR Corp. relevant to the Internet generation.
DAYTON (AP) -- The future of ATMs and self-service terminals lies in multitasking -- going from dispensing only cash to selling theater tickets, renewing driver's licenses and offering other services, NCR Corp.'s chief executive says.
Bill Nuti believes such diversification will play a major role in the company's growth.
"The ATM is still going strong. But it is changing. The ATM is becoming more of a customer-experience portal," Nuti told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
Nuti said market research has shown that consumers between 18 and 35 prefer self-service to clerk-assisted service.
"This is the Internet generation," he said. "This is really a movement."
Nuti hopes self-service terminals will be used by consumers to pay bills, renew driver's licenses, and buy bus and lottery tickets, gift and phone cards and even casino chips.
"There are legs for that business for the future," Nuti said.
He sees retailers expanding from self-service checkout scanners to self-service kiosks that offer multiple transactions. Retailers see it as a way to bring more customers into their stores, cash in on impulse purchases and create customer loyalty, he said.
Announced changes
In January, the company said it planned to spin off its computer data-warehousing division into a separate company. It also announced that it will use an outside company to produce some of its ATMs, a cost-cutting move that will result in the layoff of about 1,200 workers.
Nuti, now heading a company that will be focused back on its roots as a maker of ATMs and checkout scanners, said he hopes the moves will free up money to invest in revenue-generating programs in sales, engineering and market development.
"I knew the top item on the agenda was growth because the company had struggled with top-line growth for many years as it was appropriately focused on cost reductions to generate greater profit yields," he said.
NCR faces challenges in growing its ATM sales. Its main competitor -- Diebold Inc. of North Canton, Ohio -- posted fourth-quarter earnings that more than doubled those a year earlier, and it opened a new plant in Budapest, Hungary, last year that cranked out 1,000 ATMs.
And producers of less-expensive ATMs commonly seen in convenience stores are raising their profile.
"These companies are now looking to get into the bank market," said Jerry Silva, a research director for TowerGroup, a research and consulting firm. "The machines have improved."
Background
NCR is a major player in the banking market. The company had revenue of 6.1 billion in 2006, up from 6 billion in 2005. And the company's ATM division reported fourth-quarter revenue of 472 million, a 6 percent increase over that of 2005.
Nuti arrived at NCR after dashing up the corporate ladder at several other companies, a journey that began in the Bronx. When he was an 11-year-old boy growing up there, Nuti wanted to work so badly that he hounded officials at his elementary school for weeks until they gave him a job as assistant custodian.
When he wasn't in class or mopping floors at the school, Nuti lived in a tenement apartment where his working-class parents who emigrated from Italy tried to shield him from the increasing violence and drug-dealing in the New York City borough.
Today, the 43-year-old Nuti stands atop NCR, using his nose-to-the-grindstone style to steer the 8.4 billion, 29,000-worker company into the new world of self-service possibilities.
"[I'm] a self-described workaholic who has grown up always as an overachiever and believes he has to work harder than the other guy in order to win -- driven, like a lot of people, by the fear of failure," he said.
Praise for CEO
That NCR appears to be doing well under Nuti comes as no surprise to Ellen Carney, a senior analyst with Forrester Research.
"He understands how that big investment banking community works," Carney said. "From the experience at Symbol Technologies and Cisco and past history with IBM, I think he's a well-rounded executive."
After graduating from Long Island University, Nuti joined IBM Corp. as a salesman and set a record for copier sales. He advanced to management positions, later became a senior vice president at Cisco Systems Inc. and went on to Symbol Technologies Inc., where he was credited with returning the maker of bar-code scanners to profitability in 2003 for the first time in five years.
Nuti came to NCR in August 2005 after Mark Hurd jumped to Hewlett-Packard Co.
"I saw a company that just had great potential," Nuti said of NCR.