APC 2011 Annual Report Download - page 34

32 2011 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC
DESCRIPTION OFTHEGROUP, ANDITSSTRATEGY, MARKETS ANDBUSINESSES
1ORGANISATIONAL SIMPLICITY ANDEFFICIENCY
•IT, which covers Critical Power & Cooling Services and two
end- customer segments: Data Centres and Financial Services
when it relates to solutions integrating the offers of several
activities from the Group;
•Buildings, which includes Building Automation and Security and
four end-customer segments: Hotels, Hospitals, Offi ce Buildings
and Retail Buildings.
Rationalisation and optimisation of synergies
The organisation is deployed in accordance with three key concepts:
specialisation, mutualisation and globalisation. Specialisation mainly
concerns sales and front-offi ce operations. Mutualisation covers
local back-offi ce operations at the country and regional level.
Globalisation concerns the six support functions, now known as
Global Functions:
•Finance;
•Marketing;
•Supply chain;
•Human resources;
•Strategy & Innovation;
•Information systems.
A substantial portion of the Global Functions’ costs is re-allocated
to the businesses using distribution keys or application bases that
are generally defi ned annually.
•Specialisation: in each country, each business has its own sales
force and local leader as soon as it reaches critical mass. It also
has a specialised front offi ce in each host country to respond
more effectively to customer demand for specifi c expertise.
Each business is also responsible for its overall results, both
for product sales (in its business lines) and the implementation
of solutions (especially for end-customer segments within its
scope). Over the course of 2011, the main efforts in this area
focused on strengthening, and in certain cases, implementing
teams dedicated to meeting the specifi c needs of strategic
customer segments with a strong focus on the collaboration
between the business lines, in order to ensure these customer’s
needs are met as fully as possible. In addition, the 2011 rollout
of a common Customer Relation Management (CRM) tool for all
the businesses, for use from the end of 2011 by 17,000 front
offi ce equipment users, represented an important improvement
for better sharing of sales opportunities between the various
business lines.
•Mutualisation: a country President is appointed in each country
to oversee the Power business (and therefore, of its income
statement), deployment of Schneider Electric’s strategy in the
country (including all local cross-functional issues such as
increasing cross-selling among businesses) and pooling of local
back-offi ce resources. These resources are gradually brought
together in each country or region under the country President’s
supervision and can include multiple local support functions
ranging from administration to project execution, depending
on the situation. In addition, the country President serves as
Schneider Electric’s main representative in the country, notably
in dealings with employees and local offi cials. The signifi cant
advances to note for 2011 in terms of this objective lie in the
alignment between the information systems development plan
in the different regions and the back offi ce integration projects
resulting from the creation or acquisition of various entities in
different countries.
•Globalisation: major support functions that are not specifi c to
a given country or business are gradually globalised to increase
experience and leverage a signifi cant scale effect. Manufacturing
and supply chain operations, areas of shared services or expertise
(such as fi nance or human resources), information systems and
certain marketing functions (e.g. web services) are now included
within the Group’s Global Functions. Over the course of 2011,
these various Global Functions have followed their structuring
and rollout approach at a global level. In particular, the volume of
operations dealt with by the service centres shared by the Finance
and Human Resources functions (Finance shared services and
HR shared services) has been a signifi cant development.
Geographic dimension and legal structure
The Group’s goal is to establish, and where possible, a single legal
structure in each country.
Schneider Electric’s simplifi ed legal organisation chart is as follows:
Schneider Electric
Industries SAS Boissière Finance
Operational
companies
Schneider
Electric SA
The list of consolidated companies is provided in note32 to the consolidated fi nancial statements (see pages 205 and following ).
Boissière Finance is the Group’s centralised cash-management structure; it also centralises hedging operations for all subsidiaries.