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The concept of the “business ecosystem” is not new, but the collision of commerce and technology has seen widespread adoption of the term to describe the increasingly numerous collaborative groupings of formerly remote individuals and businesses that digital connectivity now enables. A common feature of many modern ecosystems, however, is that they use closed or proprietary platforms to support their interactions – e-commerce being a prime example. Though the model offers benefits in some cases, it is actually by leveraging the reach, speed, and flexibility of accessible platforms, interoperable architectures, and open partnerships where electrical contractors and panel builders can collaborate to most benefit from the innovation, speed, and efficiency that digital technology promises.
Open partnerships enable open collaboration
Openness is foundational to Schneider Electric’s goal of facilitating a more sustainable and resilient future for our partners and their customers. Since electrical contractors and panel builders often have a natural relationship when it comes to low- and medium-voltage projects, we understand how vital it is for both to be able to collaborate and to be able to answer emerging customer demands for more digital and sustainable solutions.
Wherever our partners’ professional emphasis lies, be it safety, availability, reliability, cybersecurity, or simply overcoming the digital transformation learning curve, they don’t need to do it alone when technical support and advanced tools are always available any time, anywhere they are. Since few, if any, groundbreaking developments ever emerged from a silo mentality, we aspire to be a catalyst for our electrical contractor and panel builder partners to acquire the digital know-how and collaborative business relationships they’ll need to create a powerful new competitive advantage.
Boundless potential for benefit with open digital technologies
Digital tools from Schneider Electric, like mySE assistance portal, Schneider Electric Exchange forum, and mySchneider mobile app are engineered with openness and accessibility as a top priority. Tapping open, flexible platforms to obtain support, facilitate engagements, exchange ideas, and foster new business opportunities is important for electrical contractors and panel builders for several reasons, including:
- Deadlines are becoming shorter and projects require multiple stakeholders, so being able to easily connect and collaborate is simply good for business.
- With the need to think digitally and sustainably becoming a requirement for success, gaining easy access to relevant expertise, digital tools, and shared resources is a smart way to future-proof operations.
- Many partners are at different stages of digital transformation, so having the ability to answer learning curve challenges at a pace that’s right for teams, customers and projects is a must.
Leverage collective intelligence to support the entire value chain
A prime example of an open business ecosystem that is designed to not only bring together electrical contractors and panel builders, but consulting engineers, distributors, and other digital innovators and experts is the Schneider Electric Exchange forum. With its goal of connecting the right technology partners, strategically, on individual and company levels, the forum offers both partners and unaffiliated participants valuable interactions including:
- Showcasing their business successes on the product, solution, and marketplace levels, as well as revealing how they overcome pain points and answered industry needs.
- Sharing go-to-market strategies that have paid off and produced commercial agility.
- Listing themselves as a service provider to grow their business.
Lead by industry stakeholders, managing diverse projects across multiple regions and markets, the Exchange is an ideal platform to promote business innovation and solve energy and automation challenges across the entire value chain.
The promise of digital technology is also more fully realized when openness is applied to system architectures, software, and protocols. Interoperability offers customers, developers, and integrators alike more options for cost-effective development and support while lessening the risk of painful disruptions. Open systems are often more scalable and have a greater capacity to evolve, and according to the user’s needs. They also provide customers more options to integrate the third-party equipment and applications that best match their current and future needs. Put simply, open systems are about choice and flexibility. The EcoStruxure platform, the technology backbone on which Schneider Electric solutions are built, puts this philosophy front and center. It supports smart operations by assisting developers to efficiently build customized monitoring, visualization, and control systems.
Meaningful business relationships are more than transactional
With help from smart digital technology, the true power of openness for our industry partners is that it allows everyone to be a part of a broader, more diverse, more knowledgeable, and more rewarding business network than was ever possible before.
In the coming years, partners and manufacturers will have to work together to adapt and answer the challenges of the new electric world. Partnerships of the Future go beyond solutions, technologies, and trainings. They provide you with future-facing opportunities to better navigate in the new electric world, and collaboration to help you win more business. To learn more about what partnering through us can offer, visit our new Partners Page and Exchange forum.
