With the acquisition of APW President Systems by Schneider Electric, APW President is optimistic about the leverage the Schneider brand is providing them in the market. IT Voice met Mr. Rahul Bisen, Head Channel Sales, APW President and discussed about the company and the road ahead.
Please give us some insight about the journey of APW President Systems.
APW President started its operations in India in 1981 with designing card frames and rack extrusions. In 1984, President Systems became a Pvt. Ltd. company. In 1991 with the economy opening, exports to other countries especially Australia increased thereby strengthening our manufacturing capacity. In 1995 we entered in to partnership with Vero Electronics following which in 1996 we became a Public Ltd. company. Two years later Vero Electronics was taken over by APW consequently we became APW President Systems Ltd.
And recently in 2011, Schneider Electric acquired APW President systems.
Please elaborate on the Acquisition by Schneider.
Schneider Electric is a French multinational and a global specialist in energy management. We don’t make energy, we don’t make end use devices, but we do everything in between. Our playground is in the gap between energy production (coal, nuclear, hydraulic, etc) and energy usage (what energy enables us to do in our everyday lives). It is what we call “energy management”. It consists in making energy safe, reliable, efficient, productive and green.
Schneider Electric operates in 5 key businesses – IT, Power, Energy, Industry and Buildings.
In May 2011 Schneider Electric acquired 75% share in APW President Systems Ltd. APW President then became an integral part of Schneider Electric’s IT Business in India. Under IT Schneider focuses on supplying complete data centre solutions and uninterruptable power solutions for critical systems. Uninterruptable power provides continuous electricity to areas like data centres & hospitals where electricity is needed 24/7 especially during power-cuts/blackouts. Additionally, it provides cooling, Racks, software and Integrated solutions for Datacenters.
Now with Schneider Electric, we are well positioned to offer solutions for every data center requirement; be it power, cooling, racks, security, management software or services.
Being associated with Schneider has given us leverage in market. Schneider has a channel friendly approach and I am sure in future the business partnership will be much more beneficial to our channel partners.
APW President is also into Contract Manufacturing. Please elaborate.
We have manufacturing facilities in Bangalore, Pune and Puducherry. We are OEM for Nokia, Ericsson, Molex, Tyco, NCR, and many others. In fact for NCR we manufacture as many as 700 parts for their ATM machines. The blueprint is provided by the company and we work on it. All are facilities are ISO certified (ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004 levels).
21st century will be known for greener and efficient energy solutions. Please comment.
We are a company which totally believes in providing means to increase energy efficiency of our products. We act as a bridge between electric generation and electric consumption. But there are certain challenges like power supply shortage, climatic changes, conflict in resources, etc., that are proving to be hurdles in the process of increasing energy efficiency. In spite of these difficulties, we are working on innovative solutions to provide energy efficient models. We have energy efficient solutions under our power, cooling and rack offerings for server rooms and data centers.
What are the USPs of APW President that set it apart from its competitors?
Well, we are in IT racks industry from more than 3 decades that’s the longest compared to any competition in India. APW President has always been and still regarded as the preferred brand of racks and enclosure for its unmatched quality of product. From the raw material we procure to the finished product we ship to our customers, at each step we adhere to strict quality controls and conform to international standards in our manufacturing. All the manufacturing processes are in-house that’s why we can provide customized solutions to our customers over and above our standard range of solutions. To ease logistics and thereafter installation for our customers we ship racks in both SKD and CKD formats. This enables easy distribution and the reduces drastically any damages during handling of racks. We also have strong pan India presence with 11 sales offices and vast distributor network covering all major cities and towns.
Lastly it’s the Schneider Electric brand that is helping us immensely in reaching out to our customers and to elevating us against our competition in server room and data center solution
Can you please elaborate on channel approach of the company?
At the national level, we have tie up with 2 distributors – Redington India and Leading Network Systems Pvt. Ltd. Apart from these, we have distributors at regional level. As far as Jaipur is concerned, Redington supplies the products here.
From this year onwards, the company has decided to appoint direct sales person in all tier 2 cities Apart from this, we have with a portal, wherein the partner will be registered and they will be given benefits points all the year and based on these points, the top 15 partners will be eligible for international trips and other benefits. We are the first company to offer such kind of program in rack market.
Shweta Sharma
