Demand in Southern African for energy efficient solutions for critical technology and industrial applications, including uninterruptible power supplies, cooling units, racks, physical security and design and management software, is likely to grow in 2013, Schneider Electric Southern Africa IT business VP Paolo Miglietta says.

He adds that, despite 2012 having been a difficult year for companies across many industries, the unit achieved positive growth, while the complete integration of physi-cal network infrastructure company APC into Schneider Electric Southern Africa also opened up new prospects.

“The past year has been tremendous in terms of opportunities and many new prospects arose from the dif-ferent channels and customers of Schneider Electric. The IT business unit has shown continuous strength in the data centre, secure power and home business environments over the year,” says Miglietta.

The business unit continues to serve key customers in Southern African countries. Customers in Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zim-babwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Lesotho will be able to buy APC solutions from Schneider Electric South Africa’s Johannesburg-based head office.

This year, the telecommuni-cations and financial services sectors represent critical growth environments for the IT busi-ness unit, particularly from the perspective of the banking industry and the co-location of data centres. Co-located data centres reduce technology costs by decreasing power consumed and infrastructure required, and services in this area represent a significant growth point for the company in Southern Africa.

Oil producing countries, such as Angola, also represent an attractive prospect for the divi-sion, owing to their sustained growth from oil reserves.

“Angola is a natural focus for our technologies that sup-port business-critical services off-grid, which is our field of expertise. Further, we have identified opportunities in Mozambique that we will pur-sue and have been pleased by the growth we experienced in Zimbabwe and Namibia,” says Miglietta.

Miglietta is stepping down as Southern African IT business unit VP later this year and will be returning to Italy, his home country.