The Digital Backbone of Business Continuity

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As the global business community faces the impact of a health crisis, we’re thankful for digital technologies.

At Schneider Electric, we’ve been working on building a digital-centric organization for decades. Not only by deploying digital tools in the way we work every day, but by digitizing the broad portfolio of power distribution technologies we bring to the market. In the COVID environment, it’s never been more obvious how crucial these digital foundations are.

For our people

First, we have digital to thank for the ability to persevere internally under unusual conditions. It allows our employees to work effectively from home. This is the reality at Schneider Electric and other companies around the world and manning the home office during this crisis will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression. Schneider Electric is used to such practices, which have been established for a long time. This is part of our culture of autonomy and empowerment given to our local organizations, which has allowed our company to show the way. These values are essential in an organization as international as ours, where employees are used to working together across different continents. These days, we even appreciate the more human side of things as we continue making progress at home alongside our families.

For our customers

Second, we have digital to thank for helping our customers maintain their own business and service continuity. We already increasingly rely on digital for the accountability and responsiveness that we owe our customers and partners, and we see today’s global pandemic giving that trend a boost. For example, with great success we are conducting remote, digital Factory Acceptance Testing (eFAT, as we call it). It’s proven to be such an efficient practice that it will outlast the pandemic.

For the future

Third, we have digital to thank for allowing us to make all our offers connected. When electrical system uptime is non-negotiable, and in times of limited workforce availability to conduct operations and maintenance, smart systems are more important than ever. The connected and natively digital offers we build facilitate the continuity of services during a time when it is not possible to move around.

The continuity of progress in digital and connected technologies will march forward long after COVID-19 is history. Whether it’s for strengthening power systems to face new demands, or building reliable electrical networks for everyday uptime, digital will remain a key ingredient for success.

Discover more on how utilities around the world are successfully implementing digital solutions in our report ‘Digital Grid Unleashed’.