Energy sector in India is one of the critical sectors. Because of the domestic industrial revolution and growth in digital economy, dependence on energy – specially electricity is very high. There is a need of consistent discussion around how to make electric affordable and how to make the power availability better without enhancing carbon footprint. Therefore power solution vendors like Socomec is working hard towards the energy storage, energy management and sustainability.
“We have some products which are from India for India but is becoming global offerings. These products will be available Q1 next year globally.”
Antoine Baveux, Chief Product Officer, Socomec Group
ELECRAMA is one of the large showcasing of the Indian Electrical Industry ecosystem and the largest standalone show in the electrical and allied equipment industry and also the largest trade shows in the world. This year’s ELECRAMA at India Export Mart, Greater Noida was even better as after two years of disruption this had happened in person. Most of the players in the ecosystem had participated and showcased their capabilities and also Socomec, the global leader in power management. The company had showcased its innovative products and solutions around energy performance of electrical installations. Out of many products, DELPHYS XL Three-phase UPS – 1200 kVA/kW is the product that the company showcased in the expo, which is meant for datacenters, industrial applications and buildings. It offers best in class efficiency with inherent redundancy and safe maintenance operation. This is to mitigate challenges faced by the hyperscale data enters from the power solution perspective. Its resilient architecture eliminates traditional single points of failure.
The company also showcased its range of power monitoring and switching devices, which are very reliable and adapt to the sustainable goals of the data centers. Apart from 99.99 % uptime, the data centers require higher efficiency and Socomec has range of Power management products that meet Data centre evolving needs, which are easy to deploy and monitor.
Enterprise IT World had the opportunity to speak to the top leadership of the organization at the venue including O’Niel Dissanayake, CEO, Asia Pacific, Socomec Group, Meenu Singhal, Managing Director, Socomec Group and Antoine Baveux, Chief Product Officer, Socomec Group to understand their strategy.
“We at Socomec are looking at how we can effectively manage the power requirements and energy requirements of the data centers.”
Meenu Singhal, Managing Director, Socomec Group
Speaking about the exposition, Meenu elaborated that after three years of COVID, it was the first time that this expo had happened in person and attracted very relevant attendees including customers, partners, consultants, contractors, etc. It was astonishing to see that people attended the event even on Saturday and Sunday, which was very unusual. People came in from different parts of the country to understand what is new. They were also looking at options of partnering and thinking of how they could be more successful and sustainable.
As per O’Niel, “It is difficult to measure the ROI in event participation, but the first impression was that not a single space was empty. All the space that had been sold, people were exhibiting something or other. In many exhibitions the company name used to be there, but nobody appeared till the last day. This was different this time every space was utilised. We reckon that people were waiting for something to happen. Other thing is that a lot of technology ideas germinated during COVID time, was displayed at ELECRAMA. It was not only from the global companies but also a lot of local companies had taken good strides in India. Unlike other years when a lot of national distributors and agents used to participate, this time the vendors were in good number.”
It is not a hidden thing that the energy loads are becoming critical. Electricity is becoming intensified, and many global players are trying to capture the market. Still, there’s a vacuum. So that the national players, local player, the regional players, or manufacturers of India are getting their own space now. It is interesting and important that a player like Socomec should continue to strengthen their offerings. But the flipside is that the supply chain of component manufacturers and suppliers is weak. However, there is a sign of progress in the country.
“We are behaving young, we are hungry to grow, and we are agile also. Our customers love us. Our team is energetic and ready to achieve the goal.”
O’Niel Dissanayake, CEO, Asia Pacific, Socomec Group
Socomec had put up a very good show at ELECRAMA. They had showcased innovations, which are available with the company in the present time. Socomec had showcased innovations for six major marker segments including Data Center, Health Care, Infrastructure, Renewables, Commercial, and Industrial Buildings. Besides, the company also showcased connector where the customer can measure the consumption of energy utilization and innovations around IoT as well.
India is seeing surge in investment around energy efficiency, Socomec is also focusing on the same segment of energy optimization and efficiency. In most of the countries in the Asia Pacific including India, there is a huge thrust on the healthcare transformation. During COVID many countries realized they didn’t have enough infrastructure for healthcare challenges. Even matured countries like Singapore realized that healthcare products should be embedded with digitization in order to engage with patients seamlessly. Socomec has also reverted its eyes on the development of this market. Antoine Baveux, Chief Product Officer, Socomec Group said, “We have showcased connected healthcare products based on IOT technologies. These products come with an expected level of cyber security and necessary control of end user data. We ensure that our technology would prevent any misuse of the user data. We have the necessary certification on the prevention of cyberattacks. But beyond that, we are really splitting the network by hardware separation.”
O’Niel added, “Besides healthcare, we are observing the growth in the data center market in India, and we are ready with our local manufacturing facility in India. Rapid investments are happening by international players either by acquisition or partnerships with local or regional players in the data center market, we are taking notice of that too. We are spending a lot towards accelerating our facility for localization on the power conversion and UPS side. First time in 100 years of history, we are creating India as a pilot country for our product innovations.”
Antoine added, “Some of the products developed from France R&D facility for India market have become global offerings. We have some products which are from India for India but is becoming global offerings. These products will be available Q1 next year globally.”
He added, “Demand for electricity in India will grow by 6 times in two decades. Therefore, we want to optimize UPS with all the data and information security for the safety of the end user. Our goal is to maximize the performance of the product, especially in terms of energy efficiency.”
As the data center market is booming in India, it needs huge optimization of the power utilization. This is where the customers expect solutions which are optimized in terms of CAPEX. This is where SOCOMEC comes as specialized partners to help from designing the data centers to optimize their overall installation.
Meenu added: “India has become the global hub for data centers. It means there will be capacity expansion of data centers in India. New cities will be added. We at Socomec are looking at how we can effectively manage the power requirements and energy requirements of the data centers. Our latest UPS, which we have launched recently, is the one which we started making in India for India but gradually it has gone global. This UPS reduces the space requirement for high efficiency and high energy concentrated UPS for data centers because these data centers are primarily in cities where real estate cost is exorbitant.”
Sharing his viewpoints on the energy sector of India, O’Niel said, “The growth in the data centers is putting a lot of stress on the electric grids and asking the government to do more on renewable energy sector. India’s power storage market is estimated to be €500 million. The country needs to scale up solar power. The government needs to work on incentivization on the production of the solar power.”
From the renewable and green energy perspective, Meenu opined, “The government has started creating micro grids in the country, especially in the rural areas, which are funded and subsidized. The purpose is to power up the remote houses and supply power to the grids. However, at present the infrastructure is not that great therefore, there is a stronger need for energy storage. We see a lot of manufacturers coming into India to start investing into energy storage space. However there has to be quality players in this space as it is very critical to the economy of the country.”
O’Niel added, “China as a country has put a barrier against the low-quality players entering into critical application space. India needs to be right up there and engage with the quality players only. In the non-critical applications space, there should not be any barrier.”
India is a very price sensitive country. All the vendors need to keep it in mind so also Socomec. O’Niel said, “You cannot expect a Superior quality product at the cheaper price. It is very difficult. However, because of local manufacturing, we are trying to bring product cost down in the country but there is a scope of improvement. This is because we are seeing an improved supply chain in the country and the labor market is very competitive. On top of this we have acted upon cutting expenses that is growing outside India.”
Socomec has two manufacturing facilities in Gurgaon. The management of the company is committed to expanding capacity if needed. Today Gurgaon facility is responsible for 80% of products for India as far as HV and LV power equipment. This facility is also exporting to other regions including Europe and China and Southeast Asia.
Socomec is putting investments to expedite manufacturing of Asia Products for Asia. Secondly, the company’s objective is to strengthen its commercial activities in India and Asia. O’Niel says: “The clear instruction from the top management and investors is to invest more into the market than the revenue growth this year. We are blessed as digital transformation is happening in the country rapidly and there is a huge requirement. Marketing for us is a two to three – years program and India is not separated from that strategy. Our focus is to be better each year. We will ensure that Socomec brand is well known and well appreciated. At the same time, our efforts through marketing would be also to anticipate on customer needs because it is changing very quickly.”
As Socomec is ready to invest more into the market against its earnings, the clear expectation is to gain strong foothold in the log run. As per Meenu the company is in the right direction and for futuristic activities the work is in progress. The global leaders are visiting India more than often to give the direction. The company is ready for organic and inorganic growth, and it is aligned with the partners and technology providers.
O’Niel added, “We are behaving young, we are hungry to grow, and we are agile also. Our customers love us. Our team is energetic and ready to achieve the goal.”
There are some challenges for Socomec to achieve the desired growth. O’Niel elaborated, “We have internal dependency from the market addressability point of view. However, by the end of this year, lot of pains would be mitigated as we would improve our manufacturing facility in Gurgaon to address some of the futuristic requirements of the customers.”
Socomec has experienced workforce in India, who are the best in the market. They have to wake up and adapt to the change. The company has a lot of low-hanging fruits. It is a matter of time how the company captures those opportunities with speed.
Finally…
Socomec is excited about its growth in the APAC region, which is pegged to be double digit and India is not an exception to that. As per Meenu, his objective is to grow at least 1.8 to 2 times the CAGR. That’s the only way he can grab the market share. O’Niel concluded, “Everything is right directed for us – from the perspective of government policies to our offers, to our investment on our sales force and investment on marketing actions. We grew our revenue in tough times. Now time is to double our growth.”
