Schneider Electric boosts Africa's data centres

Schneider Electric, a leading provider of energy equipment and solutions, has recognized a prime opportunity emerging from the rising demand for data centre facilities in Africa

This surge in demand is attributed to increased Internet penetration and a growing digital economy, setting the stage for East and West Africa to become key market hubs. Schneider Electric sees this as a chance to support partners and resellers in the region through a dual strategy: engaging directly with end-user data centers and driving sales opportunities via channel partners, thereby stimulating demand.

“Schneider Electric is a channel-driven business, with about 70% of our order fulfilment done through the channel,” stated Rohan de Beer, end user sales director – Anglophone Africa at Schneider Electric. “The growth in the African data centre space is therefore an opportunity for our partners to upskill themselves and strengthen their relationships with the local data center end users. Connectivity on the continent is growing massively, the economy is becoming a bit more stable overall, so this provides the environment for our resellers and distributors to further grow these data center opportunities for themselves.”

Historically, the company has relied solely on external channels to develop market prospects, which sometimes led to missed opportunities and shared market space with competitors.

“With the two-pronged approach, we can get closer to the end user for two reasons – to influence the technology and innovation at an earlier stage in the lifecycle of a project and then to also improve our share of the wallet at the customer base,” he explained. “Obviously, we would then take these opportunities and share them with our channel and fulfil them through the channel.

“So, it's a direct cut of the pie, but it’s still fulfilled through the channel. We are not going to increase our direct business, that's not the idea. The idea is to increase our share in the wallet while fulfilling orders through the channel and this approach seems to be working great.”

Power to partners

Schneider Electric is also implementing specific initiatives to empower its channel partners with the skills needed for deploying advanced solutions in the data center market.

“There are a couple of things that we are doing,” de Beer added. “Firstly, this is where our channel programme that we revised and relaunched this year plays a big role. So, partners who want to participate in this influx of business can register on the partner portal and get free access to online training from a sales perspective and the pre-sales solutions side. This includes all our technical tools, videos and training.

“Secondly, we also drive instructor-led solutions and design training sessions through the Anglophone cluster. We have so far completed East, West, and South in the first half of the year. That is purely focused on technical training solutions for our channel partners and distributors.”

He noted that the next step will involve hosting focused end-user and channel executive roundtables and customer events to further equip the channel and end users with the necessary skills.