Schneider bullish about Aust prospects
SCHNEIDER Electric is extremely optimistic about its prospects in Australia, recently outlining a vision of achieving double-digit organic growth through the extension and continuation of current programs, not just via acquisition.
“We are bullish,” executive general manager John Ross, Schneider Electric Australia, told over 120 delegates at the company’s eighth annual national system integrator and partner conference held recently in Melbourne.
Market stability has been achieved by successfully leveraging global accounts and by focusing on the company’s channels, particularly in targeted segments.
According to Ross, the Asia Pacific represents the “number one” opportunity for growth. “We have 56 percent of the world population in our back yard,” he said. “The potential for growth is immense.”
Schneider is targeting growth through the continuation of its market sector work, focussing on end-user accounts.
The company is also developing new growth platforms through building management systems, energy efficiency, secured power and repetitive components.
Ross predicts growth here will be twice as fast as in Schneider’s core businesses of electrical distribution, automation and control.
“We need growth in residential energy and infrastructure markets in order to reach a major market share,” he said.
Ross sees new products as being a key to remaining competitive.
Schneider plans to boost innovation and develop new technology by consolidating its R&D centres, growing R&D centres in China (Shanghai) and India (Bengalore), developing technological partnerships, implementing a unified information system, and accelerating the time to market for new products.
“Success is also reliant on working closely with our channel partners,” said Ross. “Here we utilise the speciality and expertise of our systems integrators.”
He told delegates, “You are the key to Schneider’s future growth prospects. We are keen to help you grow your business so that we can grow ours.
“We will do this by providing more solutions to our customers.”
As part of this commitment, Schneider is improving its customer service levels. “We’re aiming for a “consistent on-time dispatch above 96 percent”, said Ross.
Training is another area which plays a key part of growing new business. “We will lift our game here,” said Ross.
Eric Farrugia, Schneider’s PLC marketing director, and a keynote speaker from Europe, reiterated the message: “Quality is our top priority. We are committed to solving quality issues as fast as possible.”
Schneider’s strategy is to develop high end PLCs and programming software, with development based on openness and the major international standards.
“Our next technology will be based on a powerful, scalable processor using standard technology, an ARM processor and powerful memory architecture,” said Farrugia. “This will allow us to manage more networks and fieldbus with transparency.”
Colin Street, marketing manager automation, told the delegates that system integrators “remain our single most important channel for automation”.
“Sales of all products using SI channels achieved a 55 percent growth over the past two years, and a 16 percent growth in 2004,” said Street. Some 53 percent of automation sales are through SI channels. Six years ago, that figure was 38 percent.
Referring to the Modicon platform for PLCs, Street proclaimed, “Quantum is king.” He added, “It remains our platform, and is the largest single platform for automation worldwide.”
Street also reiterated that Schneider was firmly committed to Unity.
This message was backed up by Michael Trinca, product manager automation, who told the conference delegates, “It is now time to seriously consider Unity as our preferred PLC platform.”
He noted that whilst Unity has been globally available for the past six months it is being used on 32 projects in Australia.
Unity V2.1 is due out in July this year, sporting improvements in speed and ease of use.
Unity V2.2 will be released at the end of the year.
28-Apr-2005