40 years of Socomec UPS

Interview with Michael Carter Michael Carter, you managed UPS activities for 10 years and have headed the Socomec Group for 6 years. How do you feel on Socomec's 40th anniversary of UPS success? Above all, I feel proud. Proud to have been a part of the division and to have contributed to its history before passing the baton over to Pascal Kim. And I’m proud to be here today, as the successor of Bernard Steyert, at the head of a group covering two such dynamic, creative, ambitious activities. What are the main assets of the Socomec Group? Its independence and its two activities. Our independence means our shareholders allow us to work to a long-term plan. They encourage major investments, especially in R&D, which creates the innovation which gives us our leadership – we may not be the biggest on the market but we are globally recognised as the most innovative. In our two activities, Socomec has unrivalled commercial influence. Primarily in France, but also the rest of the world. As ambassadors of our brand, our businesses have a closeness and a relationship with their customers that play a key part in our reputation. What sets our commercial network apart from the rest? The privileged relationship it creates with our customers. In the 40 years of UPS, this customer relationship has allowed us to harvest key information on what they need, expect and want… a rich harvest that propagates and fertilises our R&D teams – at Socomec and Sicon alike. The teams’ extensive skills and sense of inquisitiveness do the rest. And the result, the crop is made up of all these innovations that have built up the reputation of our UPS business – their availability thanks to LTMs, UPS performance on non-linear charges – first with transistors then with IGBTs – IGBT-specific rectifiers, to name but a few. What does the future hold for UPS? The UPS market was always tricky, the competition is very tough. And that’s ever more the case. But the UPS division was always able to face up to these challenges. The growth in productivity from factories has been outstanding – production is getting faster, better, less and less expensive. It’s now a constant challenge. But our UPS teams proved that they were inherently adept at overcoming all these challenges – the market pressure made us great! This same inherent quality also allowed us to adapt to global markets. And what an adjustment that has been! I experienced it through the creation of subsidiaries. I experienced it throughout our partnership with Sicon. I experienced it with the merger with Sicon in 1998. When I arrived, just half a dozen of the staff spoke fluent English. Today, English is the pretty much the language of our daily working lives. That’s why I’m so sure that the future of Socomec UPS lies at the heart of the Socomec Group. And from a man who’s proud to be a part of and manage a company like this one – Happy Birthday and Best Wishes to the UPS division!

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