APC 2012 Annual Report Download - page 26

2012 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC24
OVERVIEW OF THEGROUP’S STRATEGY, MARKETS AND BUSINESSES
1COMPANY HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
Recent acquisitions in new economies
•In January2011, we acquired the majority of the share capital
of APW President Systems Limited, a company specializing in
the design and manufacture of standard or custom-built electric
bays and cabinets for use by telecom and information technology
end-users in India.
•In March2011, we acquired the assets of DIGILINK, a leader in
structured cabling system supply in India.
•In June2011, we acquired Leader&Harvest, one of the leading
suppliers of medium voltage variable-speed drives in the rapidly
growing Chinese market.
•In July2011, NVC Lighting, a Chinese company, and Schneider
Electric entered into a partnership aimed at enabling us to
increase our presence in small cities in China through the use
of NVC Lighting’s well-established and widespread distribution
channels. During this same month, we also acquired the Steck
Group, a key Brazilian player in the fast-growing fi nal low-voltage
segment serving residential and commercial buildings in Brazil as
well as its industrial sectors.
3.4 Change management through company programs
We deployed our long-term strategy consistently in the past decade
through a series of accretive company programs.
2001-2008: launch of change management program NEW2004,
followed by new2 in2005, with the aim of formalising consistent and
coordinated objectives for all employees.
2009-2011: a new company program called “One” introduced to
support Schneider Electric’s strategic goals. One, the successor to
new2, continues the focus on customer satisfaction (Customer1)
and staff development (1Team). The program also includes strategic
initiatives to strengthen Schneider Electric’s leading position on its
market:
•becoming a solutions provider (1Solution Provider);
•giving priority to new economies (1Leader in New Economies);
•simplifying processes in order to act as a single, unifi ed entity
(1Company).
One represented a signifi cant step forward in our transformation.
With One, we re-organized into fi ve customer-focused businesses
and strengthened our integrated portfolio to establish ourselves as
a global leader in energy management, becoming a leading provider
of high value-added solutions. During the course of the program,
solutions increased as a percentage of our revenues, accounting
for 37% in 2011. Our position within new economies was also
signifi cantly strengthened. We believe we emerged from One
leaner, simpler and more agile. Under One, we simplifi ed our supply
chain, reduced the number of our active brands to10 (excluding
brands from recent acquisitions and in the mid-market) from 120
such brands in2008, generated almost EUR1billion of productivity
savings and increased operational effi ciency by reducing our
support functions costs to revenues ratio by 1.5points.
2012: Connect, our new company program
Following our successful strategic transformation , we designed and
launched Connect, our new company program for the 2012-2014
period. Connect is another major step in the ongoing deployment
of our strategy. With Connect, we intend to extend the strong
foundation of One to all of our strategic levers: products and
solutions, mature and new economies and people, while continuing
to drive effi ciency at all levels.