APC 2013 Annual Report Download - page 32

1OVERVIEW OF THE GROUP'S STRATEGY, MARKETS AND BUSINESSES
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Research & Development 5.
Innovation at the heart of Schneider Electric's R&D strategy 5.1
Schneider Electric invests nearly 5% of its revenue in R&D each domains including energy efficiency, smart cities, electric vehicles,
year. More than 12,000 employees are directly involved in research and promote open standards and interoperability. Collaboration
and development or technical engineering activities in 26 countries with customers is systematically used to target products and
and at more than 70 sites. services at the critical efficiency opportunities, industry by industry.
Schneider Electric’s R&D strategy is based on two pillars: the As part of its transition towards solutions, Schneider Electric keeps
consolidation of its global leadership in critical technologies, thanks evolving its R&D processes for efficiency and agility. Deployment of
to long term research programs, and fast paced market-driven state-of-the-art methods and tools, as well as the systematic
innovation to leverage these technologies into segment specific development of critical skills, allow to constantly reducing
products and solutions. time-to-market while improving quality of complex solutions.
Schneider Electric is actively involved in research programs with Employees, partners, suppliers and distributors are part of an
industrial partners, as well as prestigious universities and research ecosystem dedicated to market-oriented innovation..
institutes. These collaborative projects cover a broad range of
A dual innovation strategy 5.2
Over the years, Schneider Electric has developed a dual systematically developed along the entire innovation cycle, from
innovation strategy, supporting its ability to generate profitable research to joint development:
growth:
Schneider Electric has a long standing tradition of collaborating
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Group-wide innovation programs aim to deliver disruptive
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with major universities and research centers, which act as
innovation by capturing growth opportunities arising from major extensions of its internal networks of expertise and innovation;
technology breakthroughs and market shifts; as software becomes an increasingly important part of the
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businesses deliver market-focused innovation by building on
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Group’s solutions, partnerships with players providing
Group technologies to develop products and solutions for complementary solutions, core technologies and implementation
targeted market segments, working hand in hand with partners services become increasingly important. An important aspect of
and customers to best meet their requirements. this collaboration is the joint development and promotion of
standards, like IEC 61850, that promote inter-operability;
The platforms strategy, launched in 2010, further reinforces this
approach. Major technology advances, usually managed as suppliers are now routinely involved in the early phases of
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cross-business unit R&D programs, are packaged into versatile development, or even in joint research programs, to develop
platforms that accelerate and secure solution innovation. advanced technologies which will be integrated into Schneider
Electric products. Green plastics and power semi-conductors
An increasingly open innovation model
are two examples, where supplier innovation strongly
influences the Group’s R&D programs.
Finally, the Aster investment fund remains a privileged way of
As Schneider Electric moves to solutions, collaborative
exploring innovation eco-systems and trigger collaborations.
innovation becomes a must. Such collaborations are
30 2013 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC