Page 43 - Inside K&A - August 2015
P. 43

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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