In an exclusive interview with SME Times, Legrand India Director- Strategy Marketing, Sameer Saxena, said that digitization is imperative for today’s businesses, including Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

1. Please tell our readers about Legrand India and its entrepreneurial journey

Legrand is a global specialist in the electrical and digital building infrastructure.  In India, we have been a leader in the protection business for over two decades, and leverage global knowledge to customize offerings locally, delivering end-to-end solutions across categories and sectors, from residential and commercial, to hospitality and industrial.

Legrand offers a comprehensive, high-performance portfolio dedicated to electrical and digital infrastructures in buildings—including controls and command products and systems, energy and data flow distribution, cable management and installation components.

Globally, Legrand is a leader in wiring devices and cable management with a global market share of over 20% and 14% respectively. It holds leadership position in protection/modular devices and a strong challenger in wiring devices.

Legrand has progressively developed product ranges for wiring devices, home automation, door entry, lighting management systems, cable management and structured cabling to add to our core offerings of circuit breakers and distribution boards. The company now holds a leading position in Home Automation, MCCBs and Cable management systems. Our products enjoy undisputable brand equity in India because they have a clear advantage which reflects in the design-engineering that works, in the simplicity of use and in the simplicity of installation.

The acquisition of established companies like Numeric and Valrack further strengthens Legrand India’s promise of complete solutions and makes us a preferred partner across segments. The company is fast emerging as a leader in its core business by extending products and services that suit every segment in the local market.

2. What products/services it offers and what is the competitive edge?

As a global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructure, Legrand offers a wide range of products for Electrical & Digital infrastructure for various types of buildings like Residential, Commercial office, Data Centers, Hotels, Hospitals, Industrial, Education, etc. For the residential market, our most prominent solutions include electrical infrastructures, door phones, home automation solutions, and wiring devices.

To the hospitality, commercial, industrial and other sectors we also offer products like light management systems, cable management as well as solutions for the digital infrastructure, along with our other premium solutions.

Our competitive edge lies in our global knowledge and expertise that we leverage to customize our offerings locally. Our home solutions enhance the uniqueness of the living spaces with the great detailing and the modern/ global touch that reflects in our product designs.

Our new-generation solutions that are deployed with advanced technologies like IoT make it possible for our consumers to have the experience of a smart home. We have been constantly innovating and launching new products that can enhance the way of living for our customers. We excel at making traditional electric systems turn into smart devices and even customize according to the needs of our consumers.

3. Please tell us about the importance of digital infrastructure, especially with regard to MSMEs?

MSMEs are dynamic, vibrant and a very progressive sector in India, and Digitalization is a great way of building a robust and conducive business environment which provide enormous opportunities to the enterprises and enable them to compete globally. Over the last few years, with the emergence of rapid digitalization across the globe, it becomes imperative for business to go for digital transformation as adoption of technology is no longer an option but a fundamental requirement.

The Emergence of Industry 4.0

The digital revolution is in progress - rising and reaching new heights every day. Businesses of all sizes need to adapt and optimize their operations if they don't want to be left behind. Digital solutions have been available for more than three decades now, and huge corporations have been utilizing and upgrading their technologies. MSME’s have also now started to adapt to the process of digital transformation and are slowly but steadily progressing on the digital journey.

Legrand's global solutions for data communication perfectly address the key challenges for digital networks: performance, scalability and efficiency. These are the key drivers throughout our extensive product portfolio, ensuring customers benefit from the latest technology that can adapt to the changing needs of the infrastructure. Legrand offers solution for Digital Infrastructure which includes Structured cabling, Racks & PDUs.

Legrand’s LCS3 system offers:

• 25 Gbps and 40 Gbps Ethernet applications in COPPER SYSTEM

• 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet applications in FIBRE OPTIC SYSTEM

• 3 MTP/MPO high density and up to Cat. 8 solutions in FIBRE OPTIC & COPPER SYSTEMS

4. Are Indian MSMEs lagging behind in digital adoption? 

The MSME sector is rapidly growing in India and has a great potential of driving the Indian economy to reach greater heights. However, when talking about the digital adoption rate that the MSMEs are working on currently, there is a definitely a scope of improvement and MSMEs need to start picking up pace in the digital transformation journey.

The pandemic has given a major boost to the Digital India initiative and every sector today has come to the realization that there is no respite without digital adoption. The digitalization of small and medium businesses (SMBs) could add $158-216 billion to India’s GDP by 2024 and contribute to the economic recovery post the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Cisco report.

Despite the various benefits and opportunities digital technologies bring, and the significant increase in up-take in recent years, many SMEs continue to lag in adoption, and for smaller SMEs, with 10- 49 employees, digital adoption gaps, compared to larger firms, have grown over the last decade.

However, according to the Cisco report, 69% of SMBs are accelerating the digitalization of the business as a result of Covid19 and the realization of promising growth by adopting digital transformation has already synced in for the SMB sector in India, as about 60 percent SMEs recognize that competition is transforming and they must keep up the pace in this digital transformation journey.

5. Please share your future plans with our readers.

Disruptive technologies lead to transformational changes. In today’s scenario, everything is connected via Internet. The integration of networked buildings is altering the reality of how business operates. The IOT/IIOT have a profound impact upon the future of business. Numerous organizations have analyzed and anticipated the impact of the IoT devices creating the opportunity as big as 397 billion dollars by 2025. New categories of services and products are being developed; thereby leading the next economic revolution or we can say building revolution.

In the present era of technological advancement, it’s essential to maintain building’s efficiency and ensure uptime and we at Legrand believe in constantly innovating and coming up with solutions that enhance the way of living for our consumers.

Keeping our focus on the digital transformation, Legrand is actively involved in development of products in digital infrastructure. Product launches are a key part of Legrand's strategy from past 20 years. All have witnessed Legrand's aggressive product launches each year with various products, following the tradition Legrand has also recently launched Infinium range of fiber solution and Linkeo range of Racks as a part of our Data Center business solutions.