Recognizing the significant increase in opportunities that lie beyond U.S. borders, we've enhanced our focus in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia to better respond to the needs of our customers. Through our international organization, we have "boots on the ground" in all these areas to provide the direct contact our customers deserve.
Our intent is to not only better serve the growing international customer base we work with today, but also to design and develop our products utilizing a global and diverse group of talented people.
The most recent example of our expanding global footprint is the launch of an India Design Center in Hyderabad. This new center will allow our India-based engineers to work collaboratively with our employees around the world, developing innovative solutions for our customers.
Fourth, we're becoming more capable and proficient in systems integration as we enhance our ability to bring complex and multifaceted solutions together to serve all of our customers.
Our wins on the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350 XWB, and the military's CRIIS program, enable us to showcase and, ultimately, strengthen our systems integration capabilities. Other customers expect us to step up to the next level of providing system solutions. We intend to be there when and how they need us.
Building on the considerable existing capability in areas of the company, we plan to broaden our reach into all markets by enhancing skill and infrastructure to serve all of our customers at this higher level.
Finally, our future success depends on the ability to attract, retain, and develop talented and motivated people.
To make this goal a reality we continue to advance a comprehensive strategy — our Value Proposition for People. To support this strategy, we've established a robust talent management process that involves everything we're doing to acquire, evaluate, reward and develop people.
We've deployed an on-boarding program to ensure that the newest members of our team are welcomed and inspired to build their careers at Rockwell Collins. And all of our people have the opportunity to participate in a corporate-wide mentoring program to enhance their personal and professional growth.
We've created a Corporate University to help ensure current and future leaders of our company have the skills they need to be effective in an ever-changing global economy.
We're focused on diversity and inclusion to appeal to people with different backgrounds and perspectives as they consider Rockwell Collins when making career decisions.
And we continue to empower employees with benefit choices that provide the flexibility to meet the variety of needs at every stage of their lives.
The values we hold dear — teamwork, innovation, integrity, customer-focus and leadership — have helped us create a high-performance culture in which all of our stakeholders are appreciated and share our success.
For 75 years, Rockwell Collins has enjoyed a strong heritage — and an outstanding reputation in the marketplace. While these are challenging times for our company and our industry, this is not the first time the leadership of Rockwell Collins has managed through difficult market conditions.
We will manage through this crisis just as we did at the dawn of this millennium, when we had to face the sharpest downturn in the history of the commercial aerospace market. Just as we did then, I am confident that Rockwell Collins will once again emerge as a stronger company, bolstered by the inherent strengths I've outlined before: a balanced business model, a high level of integration, an efficient shared services infrastructure, a focus — and capability — to invest in innovation, and 20,000 people committed to building trust with our stakeholders, every day.
Clayton M. Jones
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer