How Schneider Electric adapted its Marketing strategy to cope with the internationalization of its key customers

Résumé du document

Schneider Electric is a French company manufacturing intermediate goods. Present in 130 countries, Schneider serves its international customers throughout the world and meets the needs of its markets with products adapted to the standards and practices of each country. Autonomous, strongly rooted in their host countries, Group implantations are light and reactive structures, benefiting from shared skills which are deployed internationally. This strategy enables Schneider Electric to provide custom-made innovations for its local customers' needs. Schneider, number 1 worldwide in Electrical Distribution and number 2 worldwide in Automation & Control is present over 130 countries with 88,670 employees.

Extraits

[...] Some of those places were created by purchasers seeking to put in competition their suppliers and subcontractors. It is for example the case of General Motors and PSA with respect to Schneider. Others have been installed by the selling company in order to reduce its prospection costs while increasing its notoriety and its brand awareness. This kind of exchange platform presents in theory many advantages for purchasers. First, they allow a fast comparison of the suppliers' offers as well as a harmonization of the technical references. [...]

[...] However, those agreements must be flexible enough, and not bind the customers in an excessive way, not to lose the benefit of a competition already largely oligopolistic and not to bring down the wrath of authorities of regulation of competition. References http://www.schneider-electric.com http://www.kai-reimers.net/Schneider.pdf http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schneider_Electric http://standards.ieee.org http://www.bussmann.co.uk/Press%20releases/CBPR021.doc http://software.emc.com/collateral/customer_profiles/success_schneider.p df http://www.globalenglish.com/content/217/224534/pid-2171209-224534- 503241356.pdf http://www.strategicaccounts.org www.fdf.org/download/lettres_entreprises/lettre_n4.pdf www.konnex.org/ . /01%20-%20KNX%20Journal/Older/Journal%202002- 2%20francais.pdf http://www.forum.supelec.fr/pdf/schneider.pdf www.wcbf.com/quality/5074/5074.pdf Data for 2005, http://www.schneider-electric.com (seen the 23/01/07) A customer is qualified as a key account if the turnover it realizes with Schneider is important, if its turnover is likely to growth, if it has an old relationship with Schneider and finally the group need to have a structure devoted to global sourcing. [...]

[...] However, it is not always easy to increase the profits on products: reducing production costs cannot be done without an action on salaries or by a reorganization of the production process in the manufacturing units. As for selling prices, the pressure of competition does not make it possible to increase them easily. The idea is then to increase the margins by proposing to the customers, global solutions which have a huge added value because they integrate an increasing share of immaterial activities (know-how, technical expertise). [...]

[...] Schneider has 119 of such customers over 79 countries. They account for about 10% of the total sales turnover of the group.[3] The necessity to implement a global marketing strategy How do foreign subsidiaries of key accounts choose their suppliers? Two solutions are offered to them: either they put local suppliers in competition, or they decide to import products and services from foreign suppliers. But Schneider risks losing a certain number of contracts if each subsidiary can independently choose its supplier. [...]

[...] The favorable factors for the implementation of a global offer An organization devoted to key customers: the role played by SGBD Schneider Global Business Development (SGBD) is a division of Schneider created in 1996 to take into account of the internationalization of its key customers. It facilitates the coordination of the policies concerning sourcing and investments between the various countries. More than one hundred large companies are permanently accompanied, with the support of a network of local correspondents. The articulation between a global commercial policy and the local specificities A strong desire from the two partners and the creation of a relation based on trust: the buyer needs to understand that the deal is beneficial even if it obliges subsidiaries to change suppliers. [...]