By Insight Editor / 8 Aug 2022 / Topics: Backup & recovery Data center Data and AI
Are your power and cooling systems helping or hindering your sustainability goals? In this Insight TechTalk, discover how solutions from Schneider Electric not only minimize downtime but also bolster environmental and resource efficiency through improvements in automation, monitoring and hardware.
To experience this week’s episode, listen on the player above, watch the conversation below, or scroll down to read a complete transcript. You can also subscribe to Insight TechTalk on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Audio transcript:
Jillian
Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of Insight Tech Talk. I'm your host, Jillian Viner and I am thrilled to be joined today by Larry Hann, the Director of Channel Digital Services at Schneider Electric. Welcome to the podcast, Larry.
Larry
Thanks, Jillian, I appreciate it. I look forward to talking to you today.
Jillian
We have a lot to talk about, because there's so much change in the marketplace right now. There is so much that's top of mind for businesses. Before we get into the details, just gimme your elevator pitch. Who is Schneider Electric? What are you doing to help solve the multitude of challenges that customers and clients are seeing today?
Larry
Yeah, sure. So, so first of all, Schneider Electric, we're not in the shipping business. We don't make elevators or escalators, in case you've seen them around. We are actually in the energy business, so, and we don't actually make the energy, but we actually work to make it more efficient. So you, as a consumer, can save. We connect and put up power just about everything around you and we are constantly thinking about how we can make the most out of the energy and resources so we can drive efficiency into the environment. And if you look at our tagline, it's "life is on everywhere, for everyone at every moment." So, and then specifically for what we're going to talk about today, I work within what they call the Secure Power Division, which was used to be American Power Conversion or APC. And we're going to talk specifically about what we're doing around power and cooling to actually go and drive efficiency into data centers and distributed environments.
Jillian
You know, we joke all the time about what's keeping IT up at night, how to keep the lights on, but you guys are literally wondering how to keep the lights on.
Larry
(laughs) We are, that's what we do every single day. (Jillian and Larry laugh)
Jillian
So there's obviously a lot that's happening. What's changed in the market? What trends are you seeing? What are you guys trying to help clients with?
Larry
Yeah, so it's really interesting. There's a couple of things that we're seeing are shifts in the market. Typically, when people think about power and cooling, I think about very large data centers, you hear about like the Googles and Amazons of the worlds and everything into the cloud. But actually, one of the shifts that we're seeing in the market is actually more and more technology is actually being moved outside of those data centers and being brought closer to us as consumers. In fact, there's a stat by Gardner that says by 2025, 75% of all data is actually going to be manufactured outside the data center and closer to us as consumers. So, that's actually driving a tremendous shift in regards to how companies look at what they do or how they provide services and that experience to their customers. They need to have, there's more technology or IT that's actually in environments that weren't designed for it. And they're really looking or struggling to support that. You know, there's one of the things I always talk about is the fact that, you know, the great resignation that, you know, we hear about it but it's actually real, as you start thinking about some of these environments, like a Starbucks, for instance, you know, they don't have the people there to go and support the POS systems and all the technology that enables us to order our drinks remotely. So they're actually looking to, they're looking for help. They're actually going to partners like Insight and asking them to help them to manage these environments. And that's actually representing a tremendous opportunity for us. You know, we think about how we can drive more efficiency around power. It's actually challenging us to really collaborate with partners like Insight to figure out how we can together go and actually solve these problems for the business leaders of these businesses.
Jillian
Yeah, I want to go back to something you said because it was a pretty powerful statistic. Something about the amount of data that's being created outside the data center and data is being created really by consumers and it's changing how businesses need to operate, how they think about operating. Can you give us an example of that and kind of how you're helping clients do that?
Larry
Yeah, so I kind of referenced it quickly. You know, one of the examples that I like to give is around Starbucks. So I said just to go back maybe five, six years ago, if I wanted to go and get a coffee at Starbucks, I would go to the store. Typically, if it was mid-morning, I would have to wait, 'cause I like their dark roast and they stop making their dark roast in the morning. So, you know, I'd go in, I'd order my coffee, and I'd have to wait for it and typically that whole experience could take, you know 15, 20 minutes, whereas you fast forward to today--
Jillian
That's too much for coffee.
Larry
(laughs) That's way too long. But, I really love to start with their coffee, so I was willing to wait for it. So I'm probably not the perfect example of a consumer that would go somewhere else. But you know, if we think about today, I have an app on my phone. I can basically look up where the store is. I can place my order. So when I go to that store, I just walk in, I grab my order and I leave. And that whole time in the store might be 30 seconds to a minute. And that see change as far as how we consume is really, you know, my expectations are different. I expect that coffee to be ready when I walk in or whatever else I ordered, whereas the past, I was willing to wait. But the other thing that's changing is actually the data associated with that. So, because now we have access to, as a consumer, I have visibility to which store has what I want and I know where to go get it and I can order it and it's available, but if you flip that around from a corporate perspective, the businesses now have data on their consumers. So now they can actually see how those consumers are using their products and services and they can then fine tune them. So in the example of Starbucks, there might be a special drink in a city where through word of mouth, everyone orders a special drink that wasn't on the menu. Well, they can see that that's coming. So first of all, they can work with their supply chain to have the ingredients that they need to make that, but then they could actually go and actually put that on the menu in that store and now actually make it a standard offer. So through data, they're actually changing the way that they're actually providing their services to their customers. So it actually brings value on both sides to the business and also to the customers that are using that service.
Jillian
Yeah, it's a good use of customer data. I think people tend to get really clenchy and uncomfortable when we talk about customer data, but in that case, that really is a good use case. It's not individual data we're talking about, you know, for, I love Starbucks too. I used to love their Violet drink. It was like a special drink for a hot moment and they don't make it anymore. I guess there wasn't enough demand. So, maybe if I could stir up the data for it, it would be available.
Larry
Yeah, so just kind of building on that 'cause you'd ask, well, how do we support that? So if you think about the fact that in order to provide those services, the POS system, the backend system where you order that stuff has to be up and running. So where we come into play is we provide that insurance policy. Like we provide the UPS's that keep that equipment up and running. But we also, through our digital offers, provide the visibility and the data so that those either the company themselves if they're doing it, or the partner they're working with, so they're working with Insight, can actually help them to maintain that environment and make sure it is available. So when I do want to order that coffee, I can do it and do it in a timeframe that I want.
Jillian
Downtime, you've said the optimal word there. No one likes downtime. We just want things to be up and running. So tell me a little bit more about that. Once you get your business up and running, you've implemented all your technology, you've got your data going, you know, that's really the role that you play, right? Like, tell me more about that sort of day two support strategy that you mentioned.
Larry
Yeah, so that's, and that's exactly it. That's the conversation we typically have with the business leaders at those companies, or even with our partners. It's really, we just went and we implemented this IT solution that's going to solve this business need. And we just left the door. So, what happens next? So, if there's an issue, regards to that who's responsible for that? What does that look like today? Are you happy with the response time and who's doing it? are you capable of doing it? Would you like to do it differently? Which all ties into what you just said, day two support. Right, so what we tie that into on the digital services side in the offers we're providing, what we want to know is a couple of things. First of all, does the customer have visibility to their environment or through their partner, through Insight? Do they have visibility to that environment? And then who's actually going to monitor that. So, you know, through our software, we actually can provide that visibility. We can provide that data as to what's going on with those assets. But then someone has to look at that and take that data and do something with it. So that's the monitoring piece. Typically, that's a networking operating center or within the customer's business, there might be a group of people and their IT staff that's responsible for looking at that.
So they monitor and then they try and fix stuff virtually. And then the last piece is, well, sometimes they can't do that. So then someone has to go onsite. So, who is going to do that? Is there a person at the customer that can do that or is there a partner that does that on their behalf or in another scenario, you know, would they like Schneider to do that for them? So we've actually built our value prop, our support mechanism around flexibility. So we just asked, we asked the businesses that we're working with and then their partners just to answer those questions. So do you have the visibility, if not, okay, we'll use our software. Once you have that, who's going to monitor it and then who's going to service it? And depending on the answer of that, that will then dictate what kind of solution we put together and how we collaborate with good insight. And in this particular example, with Insight, we're actually working with them with your team. So incorporate our software into your knock and actually training your service people to go do that service. So in the very near future, Insight is going to be providing that on behalf of your customers and the business leaders you're working with to help them solve those business problems.
Jillian
I love that. Just hearing you talk about that, we talk a lot about cybersecurity right now, obviously, and having the importance of setting up a backup system. And you just pointed out so many pivotal moments that can maybe be forgotten about. It's like you invest in a solution, you get everything up and running and you feel like everything's great but then if, and when something does go wrong, do you know the actual process? Do you know who to call when something goes wrong? So it's great that you kind of outlined all of that. So you've talked about how that happens. I'm assuming that you guys can basically help any industry because every sort of business is running into the same issues. What's the first step if somebody wants to make sure that they're filling in those gaps and make sure that their business is you know, on track for success, what do they do? How do you help figure out what they need?
Larry
Yeah, so we typically start with what we call a digital assessment. So within our ecostructure IT expert software, which is what provides that visibility, we actually built in a couple of different assessments that will help the business understand the health of their UPS's, and it will also give them a snapshot more from a physical security perspective. But if there's any potential vulnerabilities with those devices. So, through the UPS assessment, we'll actually go and look at the battery wear. We'll actually be able to tell them when basically a current state of the battery, we'll actually be able to tell them when that battery's going to fail, which is actually really important. 'Cause we talk to a lot of customers, and in some cases, they just wait 'till failure. And at that point, we have that bad word downtime. (Jillian and Larry laugh) Or we have other customers which will just replace their batteries every three years. They just, on a regular schedule, which, you know, will definitely make sure they have availability, but that may not be the most cost-effective way to drive the business. So we can actually help them pinpoint exactly when those batteries are going to fail. But the other thing is we actually look at the attributes that are going to drive that battery to failure. So we look at not only the number of cycles, how many times is that battery being recharged. We look at temperature in the room and then also just the overall environment. And based off of that, we can actually make some recommendations that they could actually potentially even extend the life of that battery. And that's another part of what we provide is we tell them, hey, if you can change the temperature profile within that environment, we can actually extend the life of that battery for three or six months. So the nice thing about that is two things: one, they have the data they need to make business decisions. They also have the ability to potentially change an outcome.
So like if you're looking at a budget cycle, they might potentially be able to extend the life of that battery into the next budget cycle and actually maybe save that money and apply it to something else that they might need to do in their business. So that's one way through data we can actually help drive different business outcomes. And then on the security side, we'll actually go and look at the firmware of those devices and let them know one, if it's up to date, 'cause if you don't keep your firmware up to date, it could potentially be a backdoor into your network. And we wouldn't think of a UPS as a potential cybersecurity threat, but it could be. So we'll actually tell them, we will tell them if it is. And we'll also tell them if that unit is capable taking the latest version of firmware. 'Cause a lot of times, they don't think about the fact that actually it might be aged out. So again, through that, we can actually drive continuity of service by making sure that their devices are where they should be, but also if they're in a compliance industry enable them to make sure they're staying in compliance of what they need to with regards to their business rules.
Jillian
I love it. There's something really important I want to ask you about and we're just about on time here, but sustainability I know is a big piece for Schneider Electric. Can you tell me about that?
Larry
Yeah, actually Schneider Electric is one of the leaders in sustainability. We actually were voted the Number One Most Sustainable Company by Global 100.
Jillian
Congratulations.
Larry
Thank you. And we've actually been part of The Corporate Knight's Global 100 for 11 years. So it is really at the DNA of what we are about. We actually published this sustainability report every year. It's about 180 pages where we actually mark down exactly the metrics that we have. And we're very transparent in regards to what we're doing. As we kind of look at what we do specifically within the APC or a secure power segment, we're actually coming out with eco-driven solutions. You're going to see something about our green premium solutions on the monitoring and services side. We're looking at actually pulling in information in regards to embedded carbon and then also helping companies manage their carbon footprint. And then through the end of the life cycle, actually understand how we drive carbon out of the footprint. So, if you have companies that you're working with that have sustainability goals, we actually can actually help them get through that process and then provide the services to enable them to meet them.
Jillian
Wonderful, I don't know any business right now that doesn't have goals related to sustainability, one way or form, so that's great to know. Larry, thank you so much for your time today. Learned so much from you. Just really appreciate your insights.
Larry
Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about this. This is a great subject, thank you.
Jillian
Yeah, and if you're listening and you would like to learn more information, you can go to Insight.com and just search for Schneider Electric. We'll also include some helpful links in our show notes. Thank you very much for joining us and we'll catch you next time on Insight Tech Talk.
Marketing Manager, Insight
As marketing manager for the Insight brand campaign, Jillian is a versatile content creator and brand champion at her core. Developing both the strategy and the messaging, Jillian leans on 10 years of marketing experience to build brand awareness and affinity, and to position Insight as a true thought leader in the industry.
Director of Channel Digital Services, Schneider Electric
Larry is responsible for developing and executing the strategy to incorporate the APC by Schneider Electric Cloud based Digital Services offers. His team works collaboratively with partners and clients to determine the best solution to fit client needs. Larry has been with APC for over 25 years and has most recently supported North American business relationships as manager for Tier 2 OEM partners and Tier 1 IT Distribution. Additionally, Larry has held various positions with APC’s government channel partners, strategic partners and national account businesses. He holds a BMSE in Material Engineering from Virginia Tech and an MSE in Materials Science and Engineering from Clemson University.
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