Schneider Electric and EDB birth NaviX Solutions, ‘infrastructure as a service’ company
Critical power and cooling joined a growing list of company operations that can now be outsourced, following this week’s launch of NaviX Solutions, a division of Schneider Electric. This is the first global business to emerge from a joint partnership between Schneider Electric and Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB).
NaviX Solutions provides “full life cycle management” for enterprise power and cooling assets. For a subscription fee, the company helps manage and maintain Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), IT cooling and power distribution assets, turning enterprises’ capital expenditure into operating expenditure.
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat visited the European multinational company’s Singapore headquarters at Kallang on April 13. In the following press conference, NaviX Solutions CEO Simon Claringbold outlined the new company’s plans.
“We know that many companies are struggling to manage costly and complex power and cooling assets in terms of capability and expertise within their business,” says Claringbold. “NaviX Solutions addresses critical challenges in an evolving digital economy where power and cooling assets are now business-critical infrastructure.”
NaviX Solutions was jointly incubated with EDB New Ventures, the corporate venture building arm of the EDB, over just one year starting April 2020.
While Schneider Electric had already been running a UPS business in Australia, Covid-19 threw a spanner in the works. “EDB and Schneider then had a conversation,” says Claringbold in an interview with The Edge Singapore. “What if we took that concept more broadly and tested the data against the market? That’s how the incubation was born.”
For market research, NaviX Solutions interviewed more than 230 customers and 150 global companies across 10 countries to hear their concerns regarding their infrastructure.
Companies complained of a gap in relevant skills and talent, the hassle of managing multiple vendors and rapid technological changes rendering assets obsolete, among others.
“We did all of our interviews virtually. We would work 16- to 17-hour days during the incubation,” recalls Claringbold, formerly CEO of Asia Pacific for Reewire International and senior director of Asia Pacific at Microsoft.
Claringbold is targeting three industries that can benefit from NaviX
Solutions’ services: manufacturing, financial services and telcos, particularly with the push for 5G connectivity.
“We’re not necessarily constrained by just looking at power and cooling today; we could move into providing edge [computing] data centres as a service. There are other different elements that we can incorporate into this model,” says Claringbold.
With Schneider Electric’s reputation, the first-to-market company also has an “unfair advantage”, says the CEO. “We can get access to their products and applications, and access to their services to complement what we’re doing.”
To set up shop, the company is looking to fill more than 100 roles across technical support, logistics, customer service and more. “Singapore’s talent pool and education system is a significant differentiator to many countries,” says Claringbold. “We want to get access to young talent, entrepreneurial talent, technicians, and we want to be able to create career opportunities for them by building a business, not just for Singapore, but also globally.”
“It’s not just about employing locally for local roles, but also helping Singaporeans take on roles that are more global in nature,” he adds.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, Claringbold hopes to bring NaviX Solutions into other markets in the region. “Australia and New Zealand come to mind based on how they’re set up today. We would also look at some of the developing markets in Southeast Asia, like the Philippines and Thailand, where we spoke to customers who showed a high level of receptivity,” he says.
“Japan is a key market. Japan is one of the largest data centre markets in Asia, so we think this would resonate very well there, as well as in Taiwan. But I think we will look at Singapore going into Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand to begin with,” he adds.
On revenue, Claringbold has big aspirations for the business over the next five years. “We want to build this business to at least a billion dollars.”
Potential clients of NaviX Solutions may be freed from capital-intensive assets, but the company will also have to be financially sound itself. “We have the option to take those assets onto our books. Ultimately, we’ll look to have financing partners that are in place that will own those assets,” says Claringbold.
“So, it’s not a lease but the financing partner would sit behind us as part of our value proposition. The asset ownership sits with the project and that reduces risks,” he adds.
For a start, Schneider Electric and EDB will be co-investing to capitalise on NaviX Solutions and will continue to provide active support as the venture grows.
“As a corporate venture, NaviX Solutions benefits from a strong entrepreneurial founding team that can drive growth with autonomy and agility, and at the same time, leverage the deep competitive advantages of Schneider Electric in energy management, customer networks and global scale,” says Choo Heng Tong, executive vice-president of new ventures and innovation at EDB.
“We are confident that this will give NaviX Solutions a strong edge in the market.”