Page 43 - Inside K&A - August 2015
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Making the Link with
the Future of Utilities:
Schneider Electric User Conference – Geospatial Solutions
Schneider Electric’s (SE) Geospatial The first day featured an engaging educational presentation on
Solutions hosted their annual the future and challenges of the utility business, as it becomes
international user conference, more driven by improvements in consumers’ smart homes and
“Link” in Colorado, USA, from 3 to the ability to generate energy from their side.
5 March 2015. This impressive
event attracted more than 600 This significant change will obviously lead utilities to shift their
SE utility users and partners from service strategy from simply delivering energy to regulating it,
across the globe. K&A’s Energy and optimizing its delivery based on the consumers’ needs,
and Utilities Department (EUD) is while leveraging advances in information technology and the
one of SE’s platinum partners and abundance of information from different systems. Another
participated in Link not only as the key presentation focused on Microsoft’s Cloud. All Microsoft
representative from the Middle East products are being moved to the Cloud (starting with Azure,
but as a Silver Sponsor. Office 365, Skype and One Drive), which has an impact on
utilities as they become more reliant on Cloud technology
to improve their services. The beauty of the Cloud is that it
minimizes their investment in hardware and infrastructure
maintenance. The last two days witnessed a series of sessions
on diverse topics (electric, water, gas, geospatial products and
smart grids).
The EUD team’s presence at this prestigious event reaffirmed
K&A’s strategic partnership with SE’s Geospatial Business Unit
and promoted K&A EUD as a brand typified by professional
services. It was also an opportunity to benefit from meetings
with SE managers. This paves the way for further business
expansion into new markets such as Africa and extends the
department’s service offerings to new products including
ArcFM Mobile, Fiber Manager and ADMS solutions. Next year,
K&A will encourage its regional utility clients to attend Link
since it’s a great way to discover the latest trends in the utility
geospatial industry, technological advances, and international
implementations by Schneider Electric.
Link 2015 Users Podium Discussion
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