The uninterruptible power service (UPS) market has gone through many iterations over the years.
How will it continue to evolve in 2022 and what opportunities should partners be looking out for?
Shelby Skrhak speaks with
Gordon Lord, senior director of IT distribution and channel strategy at
Schneider Electric, about:
- How the market has evolved
- What Schneider Electric will be focusing on in 2022
- The Ingram Micro/Schneider Electric partnership
The evolution of the UPS market
Back in the early 80s, the UPS market mainly focused on protecting hardware.
In the early 2000s, it was focused on ensuring the connectivity of VoIP and building out on-premise data centers.
“We’re at a point now where customers are really focused on efficiency and sustainability,” Gordon says.
APC and Schneider Electric merged in 2007 to form an energy management company that focuses on driving efficiency and sustainability for our planet.
Focus for 2022
The supply chain is having an outsized impact on nearly every industry. Add to that the fact that we’re in the highest inflationary period we’ve seen in the last 40 years, and you’ve got a challenging landscape for IT decision-makers.
“Decision-makers are going to get incremental budgets in 2022,” Gordon says. “So, they have to be creative and flexible on how they spend those dollars.”
To lessen the impact from those twin challenges, Schneider Electric has been focused on bringing in a lot more product from overseas as well as exploring new production opportunities here in North America.
“We’ve got to be creative,” Gordon says. “You can’t just keep the same way of doing things.”
Opportunities ahead
Fortunately, there are tailwinds ahead in the UPS market.
- Government stimulus will be used for infrastructure and improving the grid
- Funding will go toward the digitization of education
- 5G will be coming as the infrastructure for increased bandwidth improves
- More workflows will return to on-prem data centers which will help with the proliferation of edge computing
Partnership
Ingram Micro and Schneider Electric have partnered for a very long time. The best aspect of this partnership is the collaborative nature of it.
“We just always get together,” Gordon says. “We're always looking at different ways to reinvent ourselves, and most importantly, support our partners as they go out and carry the Ingram/APC message to their customers.”
For more information, contact your Ingram Micro representative.
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