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Trimble

trmb · NASDAQ Technology
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Ticker trmb
Exchange NASDAQ
Sector Technology
Industry Hardware, Equipment & Parts
Employees 5001-10,000
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FY2015 Annual Report · Trimble
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Transforming the way the world works

2 0 1 5

Annual Report

to our
shareholders

2015 was another challenging year, with results that did not 
reflect our history or potential. The three factors which most 
negatively impacted Trimble were the continued state of 
agricultural commodity prices, the strong U.S. dollar, and the 
direct and indirect effects of the oil price collapse. Offsetting 
these negative effects were particularly strong performances 
from the building construction and transportation and 
logistics businesses. Overall, Trimble’s revenue declined 
4 percent for the year, although in constant currency terms 
it was approximately flat. Excluding the effects of foreign 
exchange, our agriculture business, and our geospatial 
business, which was primarily impacted by the reduction 
in oil prices, the balance of Trimble’s revenue increased 
approximately 5 percent. This is obviously well below our 
10 year average annual growth of 11 percent. 

Regional results varied significantly and were generally 
volatile. North America reflected the agriculture and oil 
price pressures. Generally, it remains the strongest large 
region and we expect growth in 2016. European results were 
significantly impacted by exchange rate fluctuations but 
demonstrated growth in local currency terms. We currently 
see an upward bias for Europe in 2016, highly contingent 
upon the upcoming UK referendum and resolution of the 
migrant crisis. The rest of the world, outside of North 
America and Europe, was challenging in 2015 and is expected 
to remain unchanged in 2016. Brazil, Russia, South Africa, 
and Australia remain weak; China is volatile and retains its 
long-term potential; India and Japan were strong.

Non-GAAP operating margins reflected the revenue pressure 
and declined to 17.0 percent of revenue against 20.0 percent 
in 2014. The fundamental margin outlook remains unchanged 
for Trimble and the margin retreat in 2015 reflected the 
effects of reduced revenue in Engineering and Construction 
(E&C) and Field Solutions and the short-term effects of 
acquisitions. The margin picture improved in the second 
half of 2015 and is expected to show continued improvement 
during 2016.

For the second consecutive year, the agricultural market 
experienced a sharp decline in investment by farmers who 
were reacting to lower farm incomes caused by commodity 
prices. We have been historically resistant to agricultural 
cyclical downsides because we are selling “productivity” 
and not “capacity,” but the extreme conditions caused a 
decline in our Field Solutions segment revenue. Although 
market conditions are expected to continue to be difficult 
in agriculture in 2016, with continued decline in new major 
equipment sales, we currently expect our revenue to be 
relatively flat year to year as the combination of after-market 
sales, new products, and some regional markets combine to 
offset overall market conditions.

Our geospatial business in the E&C segment also suffered a 
decline as a result of the relative collapse of oil prices. Although 
our direct exposure to the oil industry is relatively small, 
amounting to 1 to 2 percent of total revenue, the largest decline 
in revenue was a result of a substantial cutback in project work 
in regional oil-producing areas — which went from boom to 
bust in a very short period of time. Our current expectation 
for geospatial is for a return to growth in 2016.     

While financial results were challenging, we continued 
to make significant progress during the year in developing 
our markets. Our strategic emphasis continues to be on 
five core components: heavy civil construction, buildings 
and geospatial in E&C, agriculture in Field Solutions, and 
transportation and logistics in Mobile Solutions. Beyond 
these relatively large core markets we are also developing 
a number of smaller emerging markets such as forestry, 
electrical and water utilities, rail, and field service. In each 
of these markets, our formula remains consistent — to 
combine an extensive knowledge of the work flow and user 
needs with innovative development to create significant 
customer value and competitive differentiation.

In the construction market, we are seeing growing support 
for our hypothesis that we can achieve savings of 25–30 
percent of project cost through a holistic application of 
technology. Trimble’s unique contribution in achieving 
these transformative results is our core concept of the 
“constructible model,” which is a much richer and robust 
concept than traditional geometric models. Another element 
of our unique contribution is the ability to convert the model 
intelligence into practical hardware solutions through tight 
integration. In 2015, we extended our hardware and software 
portfolio through internal product development and small 
acquisitions, including Building Information Modeling 
(BIM)-centric acquisitions such as Linear Project and Vianova.   

The agriculture cycle currently dominates conversations 
about Trimble’s role in farming. However, there is a 
significantly stronger secular story, which is expected to 
unfold over the next few years. Our view on the potential 
impact on the industry is as transformative as it is in 
construction. Farming will increasingly be driven from an 
information model, which will drive decisions in all farm 
operations — from crop planning through harvest. Our 
response to this challenge is the Connected Farm™ solution, 
which ties all the elements of the farm into a seamless 
information architecture. The Connected Farm will require 
competencies in precision positioning, discrete sensors, 
sensor fusion, wireless communication, data architectures, 
analytics, and the ability to apply the decisions in the 
field. Despite the current pressure on our agriculture 
business, we have continued to invest in a robust product 

Our key themes for 2016 are straightforward:

•  Restore revenue growth.

•  Demonstrate meaningful progress in expanding 

operating margins through tighter control of costs 
and more active management of product and 
business portfolios.  

•  Accelerate strategic progression through a focus 

on penetration of underserved market segments, 
aggressive product development, and extension 
of our go-to-market capabilities.

Beyond 2016 our fundamental goals remain unchanged:

•  Breakout market leadership — achieved by leading 

transformations in our markets. 

•  Top-tier financial performance — focused on 

revenue growth, incremental margin performance, 
and return on equity.

•  A new standard of excellence that transcends best 

current practices — focused on following a unique path 
emphasizing “always better.”

Once again I thank the Trimble employees for their continued 
competency, commitment, and loyalty. 

Steven W. Berglund 
President and Chief Executive Officer

development program and are striving to be accountable 
to the need to generate short-term results with the need 
to continue investing in the long term. Trimble has a unique 
combination of capabilities with significant competencies 
across the required technological range, as well as significant 
and growing domain knowledge. In 2015, we continued our 
development of Connected Farm solutions and made a key 
acquisition, AGRI-TREND®, which significantly extended 
our capability to support agronomists who are, in turn, 
supporting the farmer.

In the transportation and logistics market, our goals are 
also transformative. The transportation industry is under 
intense pressure from tight margins and growing regulatory 
requirements and is therefore open to new technology-based 
innovations. As in construction and agriculture, Trimble is 
again in a unique position in that we provide solutions at 
both the mobile and the enterprise level. The mobile element 
is centered on fleet management, whereas the enterprise 
solution is focused on supporting the decisions needed to run 
the business. 2015 was a year of continued progress as we 
created new product functionality and continued integrating 
the elements of the mobile and enterprise solutions.

The sum of all these strategic initiatives is driving 
a continued evolution of the Trimble business model. 
Current examples of this change include:

•  Our revenue reflects a continued shift to a 

combination of software, services, and recurring. 
In 2015 these categories grew to approximately 
47 percent of total revenue and grew approximately 
12 percent year over year.

•  Recurring revenue, including subscription 
and SaaS offerings, grew to approximately 
26 percent of revenue. 

•  Enterprise accounts are an increasing focus. 

Trimble is increasingly relevant as a technology 
partner for major companies and agencies. 
This requires a significant extension of our 
go-to-market capability.

•  We have enhanced our third-party distribution 
channels to better equip them to handle the 
increasing software and integration content in our 
product solutions. We have created three targeted 
channels: SITECH® for heavy civil construction, 
BuildingPoint™ for building construction, and most 
recently Vantage™ for agriculture.  

 
Financial Information

Revenue
(in U.S. $ millions)

Non-GAAP
Operating Income
(in U.S. $ millions)

Cash Flow
from Operations
(in U.S. $ millions)

2,500

2,250

2,000

1,750

1,500

1,250

1,000

750

500

250

0

50 0

400

300

20 0

100

0

500

400

30 0

200

100

0

11

12

13

14

15

1 1

1 2

13

14

1 5

1 1

1 2

13

14

1 5

Comparison of Cumulative Five-Year Total Return*
Among Trimble Navigation Limited®, the NASDAQ Composite Index®, and the S&P® Information Technology Index.

250

200

150

100

50

2010

20 11

201 2

2013

2014

2015

Trimble Navigation Limited

NASDAQ Composite

S&P Infomation Technology

The above graph compares the cumulative five-year total return provided shareholders on Trimble Navigation Limited’s common stock relative to the cumulative total returns of the NASDAQ 
Composite Index and the S&P Information Technology Index. An investment of $100 (with reinvestment of all dividends) is assumed to have been made in our common stock and in each of the 
indices on 12/31/2010, and its relative performance is tracked through 12/31/2015. The company has never paid dividends on its common stock and has no present plans to do so.

*The company adopted a 52-53-week fiscal year effective upon the end of fiscal year 1997, and the actual date of the company’s 2015 fiscal year end was January 1, 2016. 
Any variations due to any differences between the actual date of a particular fiscal year end and the calendar year end for such year are not expected to be material.

Management Information

Steven W. Berglund 
President and 
Chief Executive Officer

Robert G. Painter 
Chief Financial Officer

Bryn A. Fosburgh 
Sector Head

Christopher W. Gibson 
Sector Head

Jürgen Kleim 
Sector Head

Darryl R. Matthews 
Sector Head

Sachin J. Sankpal 
Sector Head

James M. Veneziano 
Sector Head

Douglas R. Brent 
Vice President, 
Technology Innovation

Executive Management

Ann M. Ciganer 
Vice President, 
Strategic Policy

John E. Huey 
Vice President, 
Treasurer

John P. Schreiber 
Vice President, 
Global Tax

Julie A. Shepard 
Vice President, 
Finance and Chief Accounting Officer

Prakash Iyer 
Vice President, 
Software Architecture and Strategy

Jim Stuebner 
Vice President, 
Enterprise Risk Management

James A. Kirkland 
Vice President, 
General Counsel

Leah K. Lambertson 
Vice President, 
Operations and 
Chief Information Officer

Michael Lesyna 
Vice President, 
Strategy and Corporate Development

E. Michael Scarpa 
Chief Human Resources Officer

J. Erik Arvesen 
Vice President, 
Cloud Infrastructure and Data Services

Ron Bisio 
Vice President, 
Geospatial

Roz D. Buick, PhD 
Vice President, 
Building Construction

Christopher J. Shephard 
Vice President,   
Construction Solutions 

Ulf J. Johansson, PhD 
Chairman 
Business Consultant and Director, 
Telefon AB LM Ericsson

Nickolas W. Vande Steeg 
Vice Chairman 
Chairman, UC of APU 
Chairman, Bedrock Creek 
Director, Gardner Denver Inc. 
Director, Wabtec Corporation

Board of Directors

Steven W. Berglund 
President and 
Chief Executive Officer

Ronald S. Nersesian 
President and 
Chief Executive Officer, 
Keysight Technologies

Merit E. Janow 
Dean, School of International 
and Public Affairs, and 
Professor of Practice, 
Columbia University

Mark S. Peek 
Co-President and 
Chief Financial Officer, 
Workday

Börje Ekholm 
Chief Executive Officer, 
Patricia Industries

Kaigham J. Gabriel, PhD 
President and 
Chief Executive Officer, 
Draper

Locations

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Brazil

Canada

Chile

China

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Ghana

Hungary

India

Indonesia

Ireland

Italy

Japan

Korea

Lithuania

Malaysia

Mexico

Poland

Qatar

Russia

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

South Africa

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Thailand

Netherlands

New Zealand

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

Hong Kong

Norway

United States of America

Corporate Headquarters
Trimble Navigation Limited
935 Stewart Drive 
Sunnyvale, California 94085 
+1 (408) 481-8000 
www.trimble.com

Shareholder Information
Independent Auditor
Ernst & Young LLP 
San Jose, California

Transfer Agent & Registrar
American Stock  
Transfer & Trust Company 
6201 15th Avenue 
Brooklyn, New York 11219 
+1 (800) 937-5449 
www.amstock.com 
info@amstock.com

Investor Relations Contact
+1 (408) 481-7838 
investor_relations@trimble.com

Additional Information
The company’s annual report on Form 10-K, 
as filed with the Securities Exchange Commission, 
accompanies this annual report to shareholders and 
is also available on the Investor Relations section of 
the Company’s website at www.trimble.com.

Trimble Investor Information
Traded: The NASDAQ Stock Exchange 
Symbol: TRMB

© 2016, Trimble Navigation Limited. All rights reserved. Trimble, the Globe and Triangle Logo, SITECH and AGRI-TREND are trademarks of Trimble Navigation Limited 

and/or its affiliates, registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and/or in other countries. BuildingPoint, Connected Farm and Vantage are 

trademarks of Trimble Navigation Limited. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.