APC 2003 Annual Report Download - page 17

Our main customers are large multinational manu-
facturers, systems integrators, OEMs, small busi-
nesses, electricians, panelbuilders and distributors.
Our principle growth levers are global accounts and
OEMs, notably in the food & beverage, pharmaceuti-
cals, automobile and semi-conductor industries.
These customers offer strong potential for new gen-
erations of our products and services.
Strengthening partnership ties with our main cus-
tomers is a priority objective in this market. With this
in mind, we have created application centers to
design and develop new products with OEMs and
their customers. In addition, we have set up skills
centers to provide high-value added support to help
enhance the performance of customers who use our
products and equipment. This collaborative approach
should become a major growth driver.
Transparent Ready™is a key component in our strat-
egy for the Industry market. Its open automation
architecture, based on off-the-shelf Ethernet and
web technologies, offers final users and OEMs a
real competitive advantage. Transparent Ready™
improves manufacturing productivity while reducing
production system integration costs.
The Energy & Infrastructure market accounted for
around 17% of sales in 2003.
The Energy market covers the generation, transmis-
sion and distribution of electricity. Schneider Electric
serves power companies, contractors, systems inte-
grators, OEMs and panelbuilders with a lineup that
integrates new web technologies and network inno-
vations designed to optimize the quality and cost of
each distributed kilowatt hour.
Growth in the energy market should be driven by
deregulation of the electricity and gas markets, the
development of renewables and rising demand for
products and services that improve electrical distri-
bution performance and cost. In addition, distributed
generation applications, supported by new technolo-
gies such as fuel cells and the weakening of central-
ized grids (notably in North America), should contin-
ue to enjoy very strong growth. To get the most out of
this situation, we offer comprehensive solutions by
leveraging our leadership in medium and low voltage,
our automation lineup and our partnership with VA
Tech GmbH in high voltage transmission.
Infrastructure covers all of our Electrical Distribution
and Automation & Control products, equipment and
services for telecommunication, air, rail, road and
maritime transportation, water and extracted gas
transport, gas and oil transport and processing and
water treatment. A number of products, such as
surveillance cameras, leverage web technologies to
identify or anticipate failures wherever uninterrupted
service and safety are a priority.
We also offer Transparent Ready™solutions that
allow products to communicate with each other and
be operated remotely, thereby improving infrastruc-
ture performance, competitiveness and profitability.
Our customers are infrastructure operators, engi-
neering firms, systems integrators, panelbuilders,
OEMs and contractors.
The global infrastructure market should continue to
expand, especially with rising demand for voice and
data transmission and Internet-related infrastruc-
ture. Growth will also be supported by stepped-up
privatization of public infrastructure and the increas-
ing use of new information and communication tech-
nologies, which open up new markets such as sys-
tems operation and maintenance, metering and
remote payment.
7. Product distribution
and customer base
Distributors
Electrical equipment distributors rank among our
major customers. We are a key partner to distributors
worldwide, who account for around 50% of our total
sales (70% of product sales) and offer a network of
13,000 sales outlets.
This close relationship allows us to offer customers
levels of service and efficiency that truly set us apart
from our rivals. Distributors provide a single point of
access for customers and can combine products into
packages. In addition, they use their own sales
forces to negotiate individual transactions, freeing up
the Schneider Electric sales team to concentrate on
promoting solutions and serving customers’ general
needs.
In addition to local and independent distributors,
Schneider Electric works with seven international
distribution groups: Rexel and Sonepar in France,
Netherlands-based Hagemeyer and Solar Nordic in
the Netherlands, Graybar and Grainer in the United
States, and Ced-Edmundson in the United Kingdom.
We also sell products through large home improve-
ment chains such as Home Depot and Lowes in the
US and Kingfisher in the UK for the non-specialist
building renovation market
Lastly, we use specialist distribution channels for our
highly technical products such as human machine
interface and VDI transmission equipment, PLCs and
industrial software.
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