This audio was created using Microsoft Azure Speech Services
To extend the concept of the Power of Partnership, a real-life example will help make the concept more concrete and will help expose the concept in a more vivid and spirited way.
A belief in partnership. Perhaps it’s more a conviction about the endless possibilities that will open in front of you from partnership. This belief, this confidence and faith in partnerships and alliances has even given rise to accomplished professional associations like ASAP, the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals.
In this article, a genuine example taken from a customer project in China will be used to develop the case for the Power of Partnership.
To help set the stage, my employer is a large multinational corporation with sales turnover approaching 30 billion Euros and roughly 160,000 employees. With operations in more than 100 countries, our global footprint is striking.
As a member of the Industry business unit, where we support the global industrial automation and control operations of customers in the discrete, hybrid and process industries, I have the privilege to see customer cases and examples that supply compelling evidence about the rich value our customers, my employer, and our partners consistently derive from partnership.
Fortunately, our Industry business unit sponsors a formal partner program called CAPP, or Collaborative Automation Partner Program
About three years ago, our country organization in China proposed we strike a partnership with the company Shanghai Hitech. A small to medium size business located in Shanghai, this company operates in a very specialized machine control field, with expertise in winding control technology, including high precision and high speed tension control.
At first glance, it was my instinct to dismiss Hitech as an unlikely partner. Beyond our obvious differences of size and scope, they participate in a field where I have limited knowledge and understanding. As a twist on the old saying, perhaps ignorance breeds contempt?
However, on closer examination I found Shanghai Hitech has more than 10 national inventions and utility patents in China. Combining this with our automation control portfolio and expertise, our partnership could deliver extreme value for some challenging customer applications.
Over time, the tangible rewards of the partnership we developed soon became visible. One customer case will help illustrate the point.
Suzhou Chuanri Machinery Company, Limited, located about 100 km northwest of Shanghai, turned to Schneider Electric and to Shanghai Hitech for the development of a new rotary die-mold cutting machine. Operating at production volumes and at high speed, these machines help cut difficult material like double-sided adhesive tape, pressure sensitive labels, and other challenging material.
In the end, for this new machine design, Suzhou Chuanri Machinery did settle on automation control and drives products from Schneider Electric coupled with the specialized tension control products from Shanghai Hitech.
Together as partners, Schneider Electric and Shanghai Hitech made possible an outcome for our customer, Suzhou Chuanri Machinery, that neither of us could have engineered if we had acted alone.
In fact, the consequence of partnership in this example extended beyond this immediate project.
Following their positive experience with, and their positive result from the partnership of Schneider Electric and Shanghai Hitech, Suzhou Chuanri Machinery turned once again to the partnership of Schneider Electric and Shanghai Hitech to help solve the challenging aspects of yet another new machine design some months later.
Yes, this story tells the Power of Partnership … in Real Life.
Click here to find another view of this customer case.
You will also find more about the Industry partner program of Schneider Electric in the following link.
www.collaborativeautomation.com
