The Hindu Business Line : Schneider Electric bullish on India

Schneider Electric, the €15.6-billion power technology and automation solutions major is poised to commission its 10th manufacturing plant in India near Hyderabad.

Set to go on stream next month, this plant will manufacture globally unique products such as air circuit breakers. Significantly, 95 per cent of the 400 people trained to work in the plant are women.

The President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Jean-Pascal Tricoire, said India headcount and business in the last three years were trebled and expect this trend to continue given the business potential in a rapidly growing market.

3-day event

Mr Tricoire along with the top brass of the company were in Hyderabad for a three-day “Initi@tive India 2007 event at the HICC wherein the company customers and business partners have converged.

“The company’s 10th plant near Hyderabad has seen investment of about €5 million. The product range is set to be expanded,” Mr Roshanlal Kaiholoo, CEO of the company in India, said.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr Tricoire said that the company currently employs about 5,500 people and has grown from two plants to nine by a combination of internal and acquisition backed growth.

Expansion

“The Indian presence for the company now covers manufacturing plants, solutions centre for automation, global technology centre at Bangalore, research and development centre and customer care. We expect all these arms of the company to expand as the India market has potential to offer significant uptrend,” he explained.

Asked to compare China and India, he said “both markets are huge, each with population of over one billion. However, Schneider has grown a lot bigger in China as we entered there about 10 years ahead of India and the former accounts for about 10,000 people and is three times bigger compared to India.”

Following the acquisition of APC, Schenieder added another R&D centre and together they expect to work on making power solutions intelligent. The power management market itself is witness to shifts and increasingly enterprises are opting for a solutions approach.

The Indian market offers scope for growth in buildings, business establishments, data centres, critical health care, stock exchanges and telecom services provider where power management is the most important business necessity.

Schneider plans to leverage capabilities in India to develop regional competency centres in projects and solutions applications. Already some of the plants in India serve some of the markets in the region, Mr Tricoire explained.

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