Schneider Electric takes over Zicom; acquisition to provide integrated solutions

Speaking at a recent press conference announcing Schneider's 100% acquisition of Zicom in a Rs 225 crore deal, Oliver Blum, country president, Schneider Electric, said, “With this partnership, Schneider is bringing in its financial strength and overall know-how. We aim at growing the market share in India, and therefore have put greater emphasis on our R&D investments in here, rather than concentrating on numerous acquisitions.”

He continued, “We are concentrating on organic growth, and the next five years will be critical in this respect, as energy management and security, is the need of the hour, especially with the recent terrorist attacks. Further, we expect this partnership to grow fast; however, we have no priority on locations for expansion, as we operate in various verticals and are targeting all segments. We will concentrate on growing our market share in India, as it is an important market, and plan to keep up price competitiveness with rivals, in order to keep with our plan of growing faster than the Indian GDP.”

When asked if this partnership meant that they were moving out of their core business, Blum said, “We are not moving out of our core business but at the same time, we see challenges and opportunities in integrated security solutions. Our residential, commercial and small SME businesses will continue, and we have diversification plans under the Zicom brand.

With this acquisition, Schneider, which is the largest IT exporter for hardware in India has earned its place among the top three building management systems providers in India, and the company is aiming for a 10% share in the Indian market.

While Schneider's iconic building projects include global stadiums hosting the Commonwealth Games, and recently the renovation of the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers in Mumbai, the company provides critical power, cooling and data center solutions in the IT and telecom sector. According to Nikhil Pathak, VP, buildings business, Schneider Electric India, “We have provided complete data center solutions for Bharti Airtel, and besides that we also provide solutions for access control, CCTVs, parameter detection, video analytics and more, for which we have tied up with four to five companies. Thus, as one can see, we have a large percentage of solutions for the IT and telecom segment.”

Talking about the transfer of assets, Manohar Bidaye, chairman, Zicom Electronic Security Systems, said, “Employees and projects in progress will be transferred from Zicom to Schneider. The total assets are being valued at Rs 80 crore. Security solutions are slated to grow by 19-20% in the coming years in India, due to the growing security need.”

berylm@cybermedia.co.in