Sarah welcomes Ravichandra Kshirsagar, Vice President Digital Buildings, Commercial and Services at Schneider Electric, to talk about how he’s embracing service of today while preparing for the service of the future.
Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today we're going to be getting an inside look at Schneider Electric's three pillars of service transformation. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today, Ravichandra Kshirsagar, who is the Vice President Digital Buildings, Commercial and Services at Schneider Electric. Ravi, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Thank you Sarah, and thanks for inviting me. I like your podcast, so very happy to be here.
Sarah Nicastro: Thank you. Yes, we've had a number of Schneider folks on and it was only a matter of time before you got here, so happy to have you.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Yeah. It’s a great company. Yeah.
Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, for sure. That's one of the things I always say when I talk to folks is when you have the opportunity to talk to different people in the same company but across the globe and they all feel positively about where they work, then you know the company's doing something right, because it's not just by chance. So that's great. Okay, so before we get into the transformation part of our discussion, just tell our audience a little bit about yourself, your role, anything you want to share about Schneider overall, et cetera.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: So first of all, Sarah, congratulations on pronouncing my name correctly.
Sarah Nicastro: Thank you.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: My name is Ravichandra. You can address me as Ravi during this podcast. So my role in Schneider Electric, I lead the commercial and services globally. So which has three main elements, I lead the demand, correct creation and sales effort. Also, our offer launches and prioritization of offers that we want to build for our future. Second, I lead country investments and business plan, especially in our emerging markets where we want to grow our market share, we want to multiply our market share by two. And third part of my role is to accelerate digitization of our services business. So modernize and digitize, which is a key pillar and a massive focus for all of us. So that's in a nutshell my role in Schneider Electric. It's a great business growing at a very healthy space, and we have right market trends out there that tell us that we are in the right space.
On me, I've spent my career across mobile networks, industry as well as energy industry with Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric, now 12 years. Previous to that I was in mobile networks industry, roughly seven, eight years. I've worked in Southeast Asia, Middle East, Latin America, traveled a lot across the globe and learned from different cultures. I'm really passionate about sustainability net-zero, and I'm passionate about this topic of digitization, how we move from tangible to the intangible world and monetizing all of that and bringing value to our customers.
Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I love that. And I think those three areas of focus that you have, it sounds like it would keep you very busy, but also really exciting the role services plays across those. When you think about opportunity for growth, when you think about differentiation and when you think about the role digitalization can play in taking so many practices out of service that negatively contribute to the environment, there's so much potential to. Not get rid of field service, but just streamline things in a way that we can do it much more intelligently. So it has to be exciting that you have so much potential to work with in your role.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: And then also if you look at typical industrial companies out there who want to transform, what happens is services are always an afterthought. When you are designing your offers, your products, you design services later, I think that is something we need to change. The offers that you design, the solutions that you design, you need to think about services for your customers at the onset. You need to think about lifecycle, and that really changes the game with how we launch those offers, how we bring value to your customers. And the more we do that, the better we get at delivering services that bring value.
Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that's a good point. I was in Denmark a few weeks ago doing a discussion and that was one of my points in my presentation is if you really want to see is the potential that's there, service has to become part of the company's DNA. You see companies that they want to embrace it, but only to the point that it doesn't infringe on the product legacy. It really has to be everything meshes together and it becomes part of the company's identity. So I think that's a really good point. There's no way to get the most out of the things you're trying to do, even if for you it's top of mind, but for the rest of the business it was an afterthought. It doesn't work that way. It really has to be at the table in all parts of the consideration and strategy. And to your point, the customer value proposition, it has to be right there with everything else. Yeah.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: A lot of these companies out there and the way we have always thought about services as an afterthought, as I mentioned, getting into services and delivering those value added services is rigorous. It's tough. So one side there is a challenge designing those services, deploying those services, delivering value, making sure customers recognize those values and value and pay for it with that differentiation effort. On the other hand, there's a massive opportunity, what you learn with your customers. You really learn how your customers are using your offer, how they're using your technology, what are they doing with it. You go deep into the processes of your customers and that's where you find gold. When you go deep into their organization with their people into their processes, that's where you find gold. That's where you conceptualize the next level of service. That's where digital transformation actually happens, what we are talking about.
You can't just define product which comes out of the box and is going to transform overnight. No, you really need to go deeper over there. And for us, we are lucky. I think we have great customers, we have global accounts that work and deploy their operations across the globe. We have our multi-country accounts, we have our country accounts in certain segments like life sciences or healthcare to the likes of hyperscalers. That gives us ability to innovate, co-innovate with them and bring those services faster to market in a much more agile manner. We do not want to lose that ability. We want to even further fast track, grow with them and build businesses with them. I think that's a massive opportunity for us.
Sarah Nicastro: So that's a good point. So when you think about the way the needs of your customers have evolved over the last five or 10 years, so there was a point where these digital buildings, smart buildings, they haven't been around forever it's been progressing and continues to progress. But when you think about what are the biggest changes taking place right now within your customer base, what does that world look like? If someone on the outside were wanting to understand, how does Schneider enable those smart buildings, digital buildings for customers? What are those customers needing today?
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Yeah, that's a very good question. Look at the times that we are living in today. You go into the capital markets reports or investor presentation of the Fortune 500 companies. Take the top 100 or take 10, choose any 10. Every company out there is talking about sustainability, net-zero, whichever industry they're in. They're talking about digitization, they're talking about services. Massive opportunity in the times that will live to impact our world positively. And that's what we are working on. So when you come to the world of buildings, 40% of the carbon contribution comes from buildings. 30% of the energy consumption comes from buildings. 80% of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have already been built. And same applies to the world today. So when you look at this need for sustainability, when you look at the world we are living in, there is a massive need to accelerate certain trends.
So delivering on sustainability to our customers, net-zero vision, delivering on hyperefficiency, bringing down those energy consumption. You look at Europe and the challenge that we have on energy today in Europe and across Europe. Third one, resiliency, remote operations, cybersecurity with certain things going around the world, being cybersecurity is so important. And finally, comfort or environment. Delivering to the needs of the people that occupy those buildings, especially to bring people back into offices in the times that we live in, as in when they're coming back and in that hybrid environment that we talk about. So those are the main needs that our customers are putting in front of us. Now, good news is that we have technologies that can deliver to those needs. The question is how we deploy, how we ensure that we deliver those outcomes in the right phase, manner to our customers so they see value, they're able to invest further into those technologies. So that's what is going on in digital buildings, buildings market at this time.
And more and more we are moving from the world of unconnected legacy systems, non-cyber secure, all of those what existed five, 10 years back when the mindset was, if it works well, why replace it? In the world where, no, I want to get more out of this portfolio of buildings. I want to make it carbon-neutral. I want to make sure it's efficient in the way it consumes energy. I want to make it interact with the grids, the microgrids integration. I want to make sure people who are entering those build buildings are comfortable. They also have access to the services. And then in future we'll have buildings who would even look at you as an individual. Sarah, when she enters the building, she enters at this time, she likes her coffee at this time, she accesses this particular space, she likes this type of temperature. The possibilities are phenomenal. We just need to imagine and build a world that both delivers on those sustainability needs and people needs.
Sarah Nicastro: So I have one question and then I'll add one thought. The question is, and I'm sure we don't have time to get too deep into this, but as I'm hearing what you're saying, and I'm just thinking about not only what it means for Schneider, but how it applies to other industries. You said that 80% of the buildings that will exist in, I can't remember what year you said.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: 2050.
Sarah Nicastro: 2050 already exist and same thing. So to me what that means as someone who's delivering products and services together is when you're designing something new. So I relate this back to companies that I've interviewed that manufacture huge medical equipment or they manufacture huge machinery or what have you, that stays in place for a very long time. It's easy to think about innovation from the sense of incorporating it into new designs. Because that's simple. You're building from scratch. But in this situation, what it means is this importance of figuring out how the products and the services work together is amplified because you're going into existing buildings and retrofitting, redesigning to an extent upgrading the infrastructure to meet current needs and you'll have to continue to do that. So I think about that the same way I think about that when I talk to any manufacturer of a product. You can think about how you design new to make it modern, but that only applies to this small subset that are buying today. You also are left with, to your point, 80% of the buildings already are there. So how do we modernize those and get them to where we need them to be?
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Yeah, I'm just taking some notes. So I respond to all your points. I think first one design and it's a very interesting point that you mentioned. I was looking at the launch event of the first iPhone by Steve Jobs, an amazing event, and I think I recommend everyone to look at that. Still so relevant. What great Jobs did is he separated the hardware from software device, device hardware and the software and he said the innovation is going to happen at the software level. That's where we are going to launch new features, new things. And that's what is happening with iPhone today. You see them launching software version with new features that are coming. Your hardware could be two or three generations back, but still you are able to access those features.
Sarah Nicastro: The usability, the functionality, the experience, the intuitiveness comes from the software.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Exactly. And this is where industries like us have transformed and we are very proud that we are the leaders when you talk about that transformation, software and digital is the core of that transformation. How you separate your hardware from the software, how you innovate on software, how you add new features, launch new versions so that when your customers choose to invest into your technology, they future-proof their investments, that's the whole core of the principles. And you want to give that confidence to your customer that yes, you have invested in the right technology which is open, it'll operate across different systems will bring you new features that will help you extract further value out of that technology. And I will work with the same hardware for a period of time until we have to launch new hardware that needs that processing capacity, we should work with that software.
So that's the overall vision. Then coming back to those 80% building stock, that's the biggest challenge and that's the biggest opportunity in front of us. If you look at 40% of carbon emission and 80% of the building, the equation is same. The biggest opportunity lies in the install base that is out there, the retrofitting, the renovation that you were mentioning. And here you could go with two possible scenarios. One is digital first. So you go at that portfolio, you look at those buildings and you retrofit them with digital. Something in a simple words, a data and analytics software that helps you extract first level of understanding about that asset, how that is used, the consumption that is having, and the first level of impact on outcomes that you can deliver on that portfolio. And that's already being done.
And the second is full modernization in a phased manner. So here you start with software, you replace the software, you keep the hardware below similar if it operates with the same software in most cases we are able to do that. In some cases we need to completely repair and replace the hardware as well. And then you move that building or that asset to the new world and then you track his journey into delivering those sustainability efficiency and then comfort needs. In each of these cases, it depends on the customers. Now, if you are a customer of imaginary real estate portfolio across a country like Australia or US, in that case digital first approach is good approach to start. You put that digital layer on top, you identify all the first level outcomes, you go at it.
And that's all maintenance approach, changing the way you maintain that asset or you take it to condition based maintenance from preventative, ad hoc break fix, two condition based maintenance. And the second case you completely transform that asset to attract new talents, to attract new occupants who are able to pay higher dollar value from what you are gaining on that asset today. And with that investment you can expect 20% more rents on typical buildings. So that 80% is very important to address that first and ensure that technology really brings outcomes to those.
Sarah Nicastro: The other thing I was going to say more of a thought is these conversations get very complex quickly because of all of the different considerations that go into this, but at the end of the day, we talked at the beginning about how services has to be top of mind. It has to be at the table, it has to be part of a business' identity. And really when you think about how to achieve that, really it's this focus on outcomes. We talk about outcomes based service all the time, but I don't know that we really simplify what that means. And I think that at the end of the day, this idea that when you talk about the level of complexity you're talking about in the software and the hardware and the pace at which things evolve today. Customers, they care, but what do they care about?
They care about the outcome. They care about what those changes mean to their goals and initiatives and Schneider's ability to support that. And so I think for a business that's struggling to really evolve, I think if you think about this from the sense of when we talk about outcomes-based service, we're talking about really two things. Stepping away from your mental ties to product and services and looking at those things cohesively as the outcome. And then also to your point, which is so important, you can't deliver outcomes to customers without really deeply understanding what their needs are. I think I'm really super simplifying this, but this people get really hung up for a lot of reasons. You have all of this legacy thinking and processes, et cetera, that keeps people in the weeds at the end of the day embracing this idea of today's customers really don't give a damn about X product and Y service.
They care about what outcome you can provide them. And as a business doing that means really understanding what their needs are because you can't just start ad hoc packaging up your existing products and services and hope that it meets their need. You have to really understand what their business looks like, what pain points they have, what goals they look like, and then that's how you build those outcomes. So I can understand with the advances in digitalization, I'm assuming for Schneider and its customers, that complexity has continued to increase. Which means your customers are relying more and more on you to master that complexity in a way that says to them, here's how we can help you. Your goal is to reduce your CO2 or your environmental impact by X. Here's how we can help you. Your goal is to reduce your energy costs by Y. Here's how we can help you. So can you talk a little bit about, in some ways the commercial relationship, the shift from CapEx to OpEx, this idea of delivering outcomes instead of delivering things and services. What has that looked like with your customers as you have gotten closer to their needs and really worked toward creating value propositions that are outcomes based?
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: So to step back a bit, I would divide the conversation into two parts. So first understanding the customers, then understanding the outcomes. So let's focus on the first part, understanding our customers. So I would divide the whole customer discussion into two main streams. Number one is the segments. Segments means customer is part of the group with homogeneous type of needs that they have. So customers in healthcare, hotels, life sciences, data centers, airports, commercial real estate, all of them in that group would have similar type, similar needs. And you could share those needs across those customer groups called segments. And the second is the type of customer. Is he a global customer, a strategic customer who deploys the same offer across the globe or he builds across the globe? Is he a multi-country customer in specific geographies across countries they're building, or is he only present in a country and that's where he is there. And then you could have the last category, which is the diffused in that country. So just to simply simplify a bit the discussion.
The first thing, whenever you talk about outcomes or digitization, it's very important to understand your customer ecosystem, your customer landscape in those dimensions, having deep understanding of what segments do you serve and what type of customers in those segments you serve. Having those understanding and that understanding in a deeper sense helps you prioritize and focus very important in this type of discussion of outcome based services. So then you have customers who are in data centers, you have the top customer. Their needs are very similar. They want standardized architecture, they want two RSLA or two Rservice on site. They would be very open to remote services with some conditions attached around that. You have life sciences customers who are building vaccine production, medical devices, all of that. Their needs are very similar on environment management and type of services they're looking over there. Likewise for healthcare airports, so you can go on and on.
Then in that dimension, you have your top customers who are looking to innovate, who want those outcomes yesterday. They want to go very fast because they have committed to their investors, their employees, their markets. So in that you define your priority. Normally if you want to pilot a service and you want to go fast on outcome based services, you focus on that top of the pyramid. This is where you can pilot, you can co-innovate, you can partner and you can ensure that dollar that you invest to get a return. It's very important when you invest a dollar, you want more dollars coming out so that you can invest more in the technology, in the structure that you build.
So for me, that prioritization is key. When you go to outcome based model, which customer, which segments and what are we going to deliver over there? And then to your point, instead of creating ad hoc packages and going out there and pushing it in the market doesn't work very well. Not all customers are ready for the service of tomorrow. So that's number one. Then number two is outcomes. This also very important. Which outcomes are you going to deliver? If you say sustainability, what is the baseline? What is the level of commitment you can make? What is the commercial conditions are attached around that? Same for efficiency, same for comfort. You need to understand the parameters in which you and your company play. So there are companies out there, they would go and sign some contracts that would commit to the outcomes that we are going to deliver this and we'll go at it.
There are companies who do go other way around. Yeah, we can promise you, but we cannot commit. We can cannot sign the line. So we need to understand that as well. Where do you play in that? What is your strength in that outcomes based services? And then you need to stick to your strength and the financial parameters in which the financial framework in which you and your company work in. For me, that's the second point. Very important. And to educate our salespeople and our delivery people so that we really deliver what we commit to our customers. In this particular play of service, digitization, delivery, customer success is even more important than selling. Because what happens is you start with two or three sides. A customer with a portfolio of hundred, let's say a real estate customer, he says, I want to pilot on two buildings with you guys.
If you deliver over there, then we are going to go at 10, 20, 30, 50, 100. Delivering to commitment is so important. That's why you need to understand your customer landscape, what outcomes you will deliver. And then delivering them actually, that's where you feel like a winner. When you deliver that, you get this sense of satisfaction as a leader, as a team, as a company, that yes, we have done something that gives us legitimacy in this market. That gives you confidence that whatever we have built actually works, it actually delivers. That's why I said technologies exist. How do you make it more relevant, more available out there and accelerate the way it brings impact?
Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So I realize we're going to run out of time, so I want to try and get through a couple more things quickly, but one of the things you said I have to go back to, which is you said not all today's customers are ready for the services of tomorrow, which I think is a really good point in terms of prioritization. But my question for you, and we don't necessarily have to get into the details on this today, but I would love to talk about it more. My question is that triangle, you're working at the top then, the people that meet the criteria for really co-innovating with today, do you feel the work you're doing there ultimately will trickle down as more companies become ready for the service of tomorrow? Do you know what I'm saying?
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Look, let me correct myself. I mean the type of offer, so if you go top of the pyramid, the type of offer technology would need is very different, could be different from the technology that you need at the bottom, the use customers, small sites across country. So we are bringing those offers to the market as well, and that's the place. So I think you need to understand with this offer and that technology, which part of customers, which part of the pyramid that you are working with. Then on the top of the pyramid, I think we have learned some lessons. We are in this digital journey for few years now. We have accelerated, we have learned our lessons, and what is important is we don't want to learn the same lessons in different countries, want to make sure we have learned the lesson and then we get ahead of it. We apply in a much more rigorous way when we are working with those customers. So here I think your question is on how do we co-innovate or partner with them and make sure that we are delivering on those outcomes, right?
Sarah Nicastro: No, I think you answered my question. It's just that today you have customers at different tiers of that pyramid that have different needs. I just tend to think that the most innovative things you're creating at the top of the pyramid over time will trickle down. I think that that's what happens with innovation is that over time the capabilities become easier to deliver. The people down here start to want what the people up here have, and so those value propositions evolve.
But okay, so what I want to talk about next is we're talking about all these changes in customer expectations and digital capabilities and what Schneider can offer. So that also then impacts how the company evolves in its own service transformation. And so how you internally adapt to providing these outcomes-based services. So we talked about, when we spoke for this podcast, we talked about three pillars of that and I'm hoping you can just briefly touch on each. So technology people and then the organization. So can you share a little bit just at a high level, the considerations for those three pillars in how they relate to being able to execute on the type of service offerings we've talked about today?
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Yeah. So overall, our vision and ambition, Sarah, is to deliver 80% of our services in a digital manner by the end of 2025. It's a tall ask. However, we are on track to get there, and these are the three pillars that I mentioned to you. Technology, people, process, delivery model, those are the three me and my team we fully focus on. So starting with technology, one is on the offer side, second is on the deployment side. So on the offer side, what are the technologies that we have and what are the technologies we are incubating, the types of features that we are prioritizing to get to that remote digital service delivery model. So what that means is reducing more work on site and bring it into digital mode of delivery. So that's on the offer side. Also, advent of AI and bringing those AI based service delivery models, which I presented in Amsterdam as well, how we are piloting those and delivering value to our customers.
Second is deployment on deployment side, as I was mentioning more how do we accelerate modernization and digitization of our install base and enterprise customers out there. So that's a massive work that our teams are doing across the globe, working with our customers to accelerate that journey to show them the risks of staying on the legacy system and the value of moving towards the new modern systems, including digital delivery and bringing value to our customers to start first level of digital services with the offer that we deliver today, which is ecostructure for building, which connects directly into the cloud and starts the delivery of services.
The second part is people, when you accelerate your technology, your innovation, you need your people to understand the value of that technology and how it delivers outcomes to your customers and you want them to embrace that technology. So that means lot of support to your people, their competency, development and clarity on how they would deliver services in the new world. One of the things we did as a team is to reimagine the role of service technicians in 2025 and 2030. Reimagine the role of service technician and write it today as a job description and think about how we should be adopting that technology. The technology may exist today and may not exist. So this is the vision we need to give to our people. We need to build competencies to help them understand the new world, which is not only building management system, but cybersecurity, networking, working with data layer, network layer, that's the second part. And helping them to bring more impact to their customers. These guys are very close to their customers which is the best part of it. They would look even better if they use that technology.
And third part is about processes. The delivery model itself, it's not going to be the same. So we need to adapt ourselves. We need to help our customers adapt to that delivery model. How you go from tangible way of delivering service with a truck rule to intangible with digital. So something you are doing once a month, once a quarter, once a year, now you can do every instant of time with digital and that brings so much value. And it's important you define your processes, your delivery model with that, and you work with your customers as well, so they understand that. So those are the three in a nutshell that we have built and we are working with our customers to deploy that. I think that's going to be the next frontier, especially people part, how we accelerate that faster and people embrace technology even at a much faster pace.
Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I agree. You probably saw me taking some notes, so I was writing down a couple of other topics that would be great to have you back on to talk in depth about. So digging into a couple of these specific areas because I think they're so super relevant. So be prepared for me to follow back up.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: I'm very passionate about this topic. I love the topic, what I mentioned, sustainability, net-zero, and this does not apply only to Schneider. I think every company needs to find its purpose in this world and then define your focus and how you bring value to your customers. Customers are looking for, they want something where it makes them look good in their market with their customers, their people. So what can we do? So yeah, I'm happy to join whenever you want.
Sarah Nicastro: And I've been asked, especially when you talk about this evolution to remote service and the tangible versus intangible, that would be a great conversation to have because I think it's something people are really struggling to wrap their heads around. And I've been asked a few times, what does sustainability have to do with service? And I'm like, are you kidding? People have these guys and girls out in trucks showing up, literally going out, driving around, showing up, not having what they need to do the job, going back, going back again. There's an immense amount of waste. So even if the goal isn't to be able to go all remote, if you can just leverage remote to bring intelligence into only go when it's necessary and when you're prepared, there's a massive amount of opportunity. So it's really interesting.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: No, just to add two data points there. One, you mentioned people traveling back and forth and mean going to site, just going around working doesn't mean you are delivering value. So I think re-imagining and stepping back on that to reimagine the new world of services, very important for every company. Second in our industry, 72% of the onboarded carbon is in the buildings that are already built. So for us, it's critical key, and I can tell you a lot of the companies out there, whatever you are building, there is a sustainability impact of it. Actually, I'm going through my own understanding of sustainability to go into that topic in a deeper way with a sustainability expert certification.
Sarah Nicastro: Oh, that's awesome.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Yeah, it's just to understand, you need to understand the topic deeper to really comment on it, whether it impacts your business or not. And chances are it does impact your business and the deeper you go the better you understand.
Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Okay. So two more questions. One is, when you think about, not how far you've come, which is fantastic, but where we're going next, when you think about this services of 2025 services of 2030 and beyond, what would you say is the biggest challenge that you expect to have to overcome to really get to where you want to be?
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: I think that's a great question. I would say there are three main challenges that we need to work on to really go faster on digitization of services and to the new world. Number one is people. I mentioned that service business is about people. It was about people, it is about people, and it will always be about people. And we need to really pay attention to our people and make sure we hold their hand and we bring them with us in that world. It's not about replacing people. There's so much work out there, there's so many outcomes we need to do, we need to do it with the same experts and even bring new generation of leaders into this industry. So it is about people to ensure that we address that challenge head on and in a very organized way.
Number two is about technology. Technology is about collaboration. So it's not just Schneider Electric or other company in this ecosystem. We are part of the ecosystem, and that means you need open technologies that operate across different systems, across vendors, across different protocols. We are able to build those open architectures that have independent data layers. So you have applications and outcomes that you deliver today, and you are ready to build applications that you would need tomorrow. Future proofing your technology, that's the key part. And ensuring that openness in your technology is very important. Everyone building their own technology is great, but if it doesn't operate with others, it's a challenge.
And the third one is adoption. Adoption, deployment. We need to move away from this legacy mindset. If it works, I don't need to replace it. It's not just about maintenance. Maintenance, it's a very interesting word. Maintenance means maintain the same performance, like the same line. Today, it's about outcomes. Performance means going up, improving, delivering more than what was asked. So if you stay on that old legacy mindset, you don't move to that world of outcomes, world of performance, and every building out there needs to perform to the best possible level. So here the facility managers, the people who are working with the engineers need to move to that new world and try newer technologies and deploy them at scale so that we deliver bigger outcomes on sustainability faster. I would say those three. People, technology, the open collaboration and adoption, moving away from legacy mindset.
Sarah Nicastro: They're all good points. Last question, Ravi, is as a service leader, you mentioned you've been at Schneider 12 years. 12 years has brought a lot of change, and you are responsible for a good scope of things. So in your experiences, what's the biggest lesson you've learned?
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Yeah, the biggest lesson I've learned is listen to your customers and listen to your people. Listening to your customers is very important. And listening means active listening, understanding what they're doing with your technology, where they're deploying it, what type of outcomes they want to deliver. And then triangulating that across different customer groups. Maybe one customer will tell you something. Another one tells you something, the market tells you something else. And together that creates immense value if you are able to triangulate and analyze that information to create certain priority areas where you should be investing your energy as well as your resources. And second is about listening to your people. I think our people, especially the technicians in the field, the engineers, these guys have immense knowledge. They know their customers better than sometimes anyone. And I spend a lot of time in the field.
I spend time going to sites with our engineers, and those are the best journeys where they're telling you how the customer is using it. They'll even tell you something better than anyone has thought on the offer roadmap, I can tell you that it's amazing. So that's listening to your people is very important. I would add a third one, I think the lesson, this applies to all the leaders in every industry is executing, delivering on commitments, delivering on performance. Because when you deliver, then you get more investment in your business. In a group like ours or anywhere else, you need to ensure that performance is moving and you are able to attract investment to your business in the group. So those three things, I would say, customers, people and execution is a priority. Third one I did later, but yeah, it's always on my mind. Executing as well.
Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, well, like you said earlier, when you're talking about moving to outcomes, you are only as good as your execution. So it's a very important point. All good points, Ravi. Thank you so much for coming and sharing with me and our listeners. And as I said, I took some notes, so I'll look forward to having you back again in the near future. But appreciate your time and appreciate you coming on.
Ravichandra Kshirsagar: Thank you, Sarah. It was a pleasure to have this discussion. And yeah, I would be happy to join you whenever you want. Thank you.
Sarah Nicastro: I appreciate that. You can learn more by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. Please be sure to make sure you subscribe to the Future of Field Service Insider so you can stay up to date on all of the latest content. Also, check out the dates for the 2023 live tour. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.