Chairman

MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS REPORT
necessary, utilize its global expertise and deep
management experience and become domain
experts in particular market segments leading to
a more consultative selling approach and profitable
growth.
Strengths and competitive advantages
Strong and well-established brand name: Your
Company believes that its affiliation with its
promoters gives it an edge over the competitors
in terms of an experienced management team
with the requisite skills for efficient business
operations and deep understanding of the industry.
• Access to global research and development
and technical know-how: Your Company has
access to global R&D of group companies
which provides it an edge in terms having
shorter lead time of launching new products
to meet customer requirements and also reduce
the product cost.
• Wide geographical reach: Your Company has
nation-wide presence by way of manufacturing
facilities and sales office which helps in tapping
all the major customers of the power distribution
business.
• High level of localization: Your Company’s
presence in Indian markets for over 100 years
now adds to the better understanding of local
industry dynamics. The Company has
successfully industrialised its product offerings
to the market giving it cost and delivery time
advantage.
Support Functions
Human Resources
The employee Strength of your Company was
1900 as on 31st March 2012. The HR team is
committed to further develop and retain the
competencies of the organizational talent. Industrial
relations continued to be cordial, contributing to
Productivity increase.
Finance
During the year, the Finance Shared Service Centre
(FSSC) was established to handle transactional
finance activities to improve the operations
efficiency. With the establishment of FSSC, duties
under different finance processes were segregated
to allow better internal control. FSSC focuses on
speed, accuracy and efficient processing of
transactions with efficient tools such as intelligent
scanning, workflows and messenger
communication. Training was undertaken for
employees to acquire working knowledge.
Investor Relations
During the year company continued to make
several efforts in strengthening investor
communication and to make investors interested
in the Infrastructure sector. Several investor
conference calls were held to discuss the progress
and performance of the Company to keep investors
abreast of developments in the company and in
the sector.
Risk and Internal Controls
During the year, the Audit Committee was informed
of the risk assessment and internal control
framework of the company. Internal Controls are
assumed to be embedded in all company
processes and there is a system of self-assessment
by operational management with respect to the
Key Internal Controls which are identified for each
process. The risk assessment follows a
companywide approach and the risk matrix
summarises the key risks to the company’s
business. This is reviewed by the Audit Committee
along with the Annual Audit Plan. The progress of
the risk mitigation plans is be reviewed by the
Board periodically as is the progress of the internal
audit assignments as well as the recommendations
of internal audit and accompanying remedial action
plans.
30 | Schneider Electric Infrastructure Limited