Schneider Electric is a multinational digital automation and energy management company with roots as an electrical equipment manufacturer. Several years ago, Schneider Electric recognized the need to pivot its product strategy beyond just being an equipment manufacturer. It did this via an open API-based platform grounded in its data, which it determined was the ideal way to transform itself and achieve its goals. We had the opportunity to speak with Philippe Raffin and Ana Martin of Schneider Electric about this transformation. There were two key aspects of it: a new business mindset centered on stakeholder value and making APIs central to its business strategy.
Schneider Electric’s Path To Stakeholder Value
Schneider Electric recognized that customers create value for themselves as they navigate their value network. Think of value networks as all the people and organizations that customers work with as they pursue a goal. To win a place in customer value networks, you must focus on the customer, not your business. Schneider Electric focuses on these customer goals over its hardware and services to develop solutions that accomplish those goals.
But like all companies, Schneider Electric can’t solve every problem for every customer by itself. By focusing on customer value networks, Schneider Electric recognized the need to open its products via APIs for other partner participants in the customer value network to extend and enhance its own products. This API platform is called EcoStruxure. Leveraging Schneider Electric’s APIs, partners can access data from EcoStruxure systems and cocreate solutions for customers. Customers can find these on the Schneider Electric Exchange website — a one-stop shop for customers to assemble solutions from both Schneider Electric and its partners.
Schneider Electric, therefore, has not just earned a place in the customer value network: It is also facilitating value creation across the customer value network beyond its own products and services. This produces greater stakeholder value for customers, partners, and especially Schneider Electric.
Schneider Electric’s Future Lies In APIs
This approach to value creation has placed APIs front and center in Schneider Electric’s future. When it needed a new CEO in 2023, its board appointed Peter Herweck to the post. His prior experience as CEO of the industrial software group AVEVA signals that Schneider Electric is no longer just an electrical device manufacturer — it is also an API-connected software company. Schneider Electric’s financial approach doesn’t focus solely on units sold or software subscriptions. It also measures value flowing through APIs and measures business leaders on how much business they do with external partners.
API-based business models are no longer just the purview of Silicon Valley tech firms. They are relevant to many sectors — from insurance and retail to, as Schneider Electric proves, equipment manufacturing. Forrester expects that the emerging world of AI automation will put further pressure on organizations to adopt business-led API strategies. Schneider Electric provides an example for others to follow.
Forrester clients can read more about Schneider Electric’s success in our report, Case Study: Schneider’s API-Driven Path To Stakeholder Value.
