Illustrating its commitment to being both a solutions and services leader, Schneider Electric South Africa has established a Solutions and Services Execution Centre.
According to Mark Marucchi, who heads up the new Execution Centre, Schneider Electric South Africa prides itself on being able to offer holistic solutions to its clients in both the private and public sectors.
“As a global specialist in energy management, Schneider Electric has, for many years, offered a number of products and solutions to its clients. Recently, it has simplified its organisational structure and now offers its all encompassing solutions under one Schneider Electric brand, across various sectors such as energy, industry, buildings, data centre, networks, and residential customers,” he says.
Marucchi has worked in the project management sphere for more than 17 years, leading large projects, such as the most extensive electric melting furnace in the southern hemisphere and the biggest energy management system in South Africa.
He has been with Schneider Electric for 10 years, focusing on automation, electrical distribution, training and support as well as power management, and has successfully headed up its low and medium voltage services division, as well as the project management departments for electrical distribution and energy efficiency.
Of the new execution centre he says: “As a one stop solutions shop, the Solutions and Services Execution Centre leverages the capabilities, skills and competencies of Schneider Electric South Africa’s resources.
“By doing so, it expands its portfolio of high value systems and services in order to meet the specific need of its customers in targeted customer segments. It is also aimed at strengthening cooperation with the front office and designed to develop key competencies around solutions and services in order to drive growth for the company.”
Marucchi explains that the execution centre is made up of three parts:
* Shared support – here teams are positioned centrally to support transversal project teams. Shared support consists of both shared back office functions such as human resources, finance, legal and IT, as well as dedicated support functions such as environmental health and safety, purchasing and process/ tools.
* Solution centre – this hub delivers tendering, project management and solutions architecture support for multi technology and complex projects, and is focused specifically on the mining segment.
* Application centres – these include energy application (focused on medium voltage, low voltage and IT solutions), industry application (focused primarily on automation and engineered drive solutions) and two service centres that are focused on electrical distribution as well as IT services.
All application centres concentrate on execution and include specialised tendering, engineering, project management and administrative functions.
“Fundamentally, the centre ensures that best practices are defined and that the organisation’s technology focus is not lost,” adds Marucchi.