We believe in continuously investing in our products, solutions
Thanik B, Director Strategy & Business Development, Buildings Business, Schneider Electric; talks about trends for 2016 and company’s USP with Realty Plus What are the latest products offered by your brand in Building Management Systems? EcoStruxure architecture is the Schneider Electric approach that allows convergence of five key domains of expertise: the management of Power, Process & Machine, Building, Security and IT Room. It acts as a solution ecosystem, offering guaranteed compatibility across key application areas and leveraging open standards across both Schneider Electric and third party offers. This approach enables to create the right answers to sustainable operation challenges by making your energies safe, reliable, efficient, productive and green while saving on CapEx and OpEx. Under the Building management system, the Ecostruxure solution for buildings delivers reliable integration between building infrastructure systems, services and applications that improves asset value, rental value and financial performance (profit), while minimising environmental impact (planet), and creating safer, healthier places to work and play in (people). What are the market trends for 2016? Within smart buildings, public security and surveillance systems will possess greater potential, while operations and maintenance will offer similar opportunities. Security systems will also include online and cyber security, since successful and smooth operations of the entire smart city and all buildings within each would depend on best-in-class cyber security. In smart energy, greater potential will lie in systems that integrate renewable sources within the grid, promote energy storage as well as minimise distribution losses, customer usage and operational costs. Sensor-based devices can have great potential here. In smart water systems, sensor-based devices that reduce and regulate the flow of water would be critical because these would not only save a precious resource but curb costs too. These systems would include leak-detection devices. In the above segments, smart metering devices that allow direct online bill payments will have great potential too. Moreover, unlike conventional equipment vendors and service providers, there will be greater scope for those providing turnkey solutions combining both information and operational technologies that are quick to implement and easy to integrate. These technologies ensure energy efficiency, ease-of-use and maintenance, occupant comfort and single-console control of the entire system. What is the USP of your company? We believe in continuously investing in our products and solutions to ensure we are technically the best in the market. EcoStruxure is a big differentiator for us as it is open and scalable and at the same time allows integration of offers from multiple businesses of Schneider Electric. Customers know they can trust that our offers are safe, reliable, efficient, productive, green, and “always connected”. What is the target audience for your products? Our target audience includes electrical utilities, water and waste treatment plants and public-sector investors in various segments such as energy and infrastructure, industry, data centres and networks, buildings and residential. Our products cater to Processes control and supervision, Power supply and distribution, Energy monitoring and control, Utility management (lighting, ventilation, elevators, intruder alert, etc.), Smart electrical networks management, Single site or multi-site production data management and Critical power. What are your future plans? We have invested significantly in India in the last 5-10 years. We now have ~21,000 employees in India and 32 factories. Our focus over the next 2-3 years would be to continue growing. We aim to achieve this by introducing more innovative products, getting into new cities, growing our partner base and by doing all this delivering more value to our customers. Today, manufacturing has evolved to such an extent that only through innovation and investment in technologies can businesses gain the productivity and efficiency advantage that will allow them to compete in the global market. The 'Make in India' initiative, which seeks to make the country a global manufacturing hub, is expected to be the biggest driver for industrial automation. Internet of Things is expected to take the big step forward as global organizations investing in India will, no doubt, leverage and integrate technology and skills to enhance their competitive edge and capture markets.
Tags : Interview Old