Gabriel Tache, Eaton Electric România: “We are investing in digital capabilities to become an intelligent power management company”

Eaton Electric Romania registered a “robust” evolution in 2021, managing to maintain its revenue and profitability.

“One of the main achievements of the company in 2021 is given by the fact that we kept our team unbroken, united and as powerful as always, even if 90% of work has been still carried out at distance. The conclusion is that the best investment is in people, which is the most certain way to keeping all our settled objectives met. From the business point of view, the Commercial and Industrial sectors registered accelerated rate of growth, in percentages that exceed even two digits,” Gabriel Tache, General Manager Eaton Electric Romania, told The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“We will continue to work on developing products that are designed to help customers around the world use power more reliably, efficiently and safely. We help them to become more resilient and sustainable by adding more renewables, storage and electric vehicle infrastructure to their energy mix. The shift from fossil fuels to electrons as the primary source of power for more and more applications will also require more intelligence to manage those power flows.”

COMMITMENT TO PERFORMANCE | BUSINESS EVOLUTION, PROJECTS, PERFORMANCE, FIGURES  

“As the pandemic situation is still present in our day to day lives and is shaping the course of the economies around the world, our company, as well as the majority of the businesses, had to adapt to this unprecedent normal. After the first year of the pandemic, when the business environment was faced with new lessons to learn and tough decisions to make, 2021 arrived as a major test, in which the ones who passed it were the ones who really managed to draw value from all the challenges and translate the threats into opportunities.

If I were to choose one word to describe the evolution of Eaton Electric Romania during the past year, that would be “robust”. We managed to maintain the parameters set, both in terms of revenue and profitability. We understood that digitization is here to stay, so we integrated digital transformation at all levels of our development strategy.

One of the main achievements of the company in 2021 is given by the fact that we kept our team unbroken, united and as powerful as always, even if 90% of work has been still carried out at distance. The conclusion is that the best investment is in people, which is the most certain way to keeping all our settled objectives met. From the business point of view, the Commercial and Industrial sectors registered accelerated rate of growth, in percentages that exceed even two digits.”

STRATEGY & VISION | RETHINK STRATEGY & PRIORITIES

“2021 was definitely a challenging year, but any challenge or problem should always come with a solution. Despite the challenges triggered by the sanitary crisis, we deal with the raw materials crisis, used in the electrical engineering industry, which is the most important issue for us, the blocking in international supply chains and the increase of transport costs. The safety and the well-being of our people, both the employees from the office buildings and plants, was always our main concern and the first to consider in all the decisions we made. This is why another challenge was to optimize the best work from home conditions, to organize the teams, to make sure the activity in the plants will run smoothly and to make the business activity efficient in the new working conditions.

Our Group is going through the most significant transformation in the company’s 110-year history. Eaton’s core capabilities in electrical and mechanical power management means it is well placed to help its customers across a wide range of power intensive industries to navigate the transition to a zero-carbon future. One of our main priorities is represented by the approach ‘Everything as a Grid’, through which everything will be connected to build a safe way of operation for the nature and environment. This approach is taken to the energy transition and has the aim to unlock a low-carbon future. Inside cars, aeroplanes, distribution grids, data centres, office buildings, warehouses, factories, hospitals and homes, Eaton technology is helping to safely manage and optimise energy flows.

We will continue to work on developing products that are designed to help customers around the world use power more reliably, efficiently and safely. We help them to become more resilient and sustainable by adding more renewables, storage and electric vehicle infrastructure to their energy mix. The shift from fossil fuels to electrons as the primary source of power for more and more applications will also require more intelligence to manage those power flows. That is why Eaton is investing in its digital capabilities to become an intelligent power management company.”

PEOPLE & COMMUNITY | FOCUS ON SAFETY, SOCIAL APPROACH, LEVERAGE THE POWER OF COMMUNITY

“Eaton’s sustainability pillars encompass engaging employees and communities, part of who we are as a company, aiming to solve sustainability challenges and improve the communities in which we live and work. Eaton has also committed to delivering 250.000 hours of employee volunteering time per year. This is why also in Romania we are constantly involved in social initiatives, as our goal is to make a positive impact in the communities where we are present. Through our Sarbi plant we developed the Eaton Charitable grants to support local communities there, but we are also involved in educational projects such as the Eaton Dual Apprenticeship school, where we’ve trained 75 students so far in electrical field, we organized webinars in partnership with the Technical University from Baia Mare on different topics such as bullying, career coaching, skills needed for the future. We also supported the Esperando Association, which fights for the integration of children with disabilities and is one of the best-known organizations working in the field of social services for people with disabilities, so that they are able to have a beautiful life, with dreams and love.

The most recent community initiatives implemented by our plant in Arad include sponsorship for „Asociatia Dalia”, sponsorship for „Cetatea Aradului”, partnership with World Vision in which our employees prepared Christmas gifts for poor children based on their letters, we offer summer jobs for high school students in Arad.

We are running sponsorship actions for “Centrul de zi Aurora”, a multidisciplinary institution of care – education, rehabilitation and socialization – for children suffering from severe neuromotor deficiencies, and for Asociatia “Daruieste viata”, which initiated the largest social involvement initiative in Romania, #NoiFacemUnSpital (#WeBuildAHospital), the first pediatric oncology hospital in Romania.”

KEEN ON GREEN | SUSTAINABLE, GREENER, COMMUNITY & ENVIRONMENTALLY-FOCUS

“Our company vision is to ‘’improve the quality of life and environment through the use of power management technologies and services’’ and we do this by embracing our company sustainability pillars in which reducing our footprint is essential. This is why by 2030 Eaton’s goal worldwide is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by 50% from 2018 levels and to Invest 3 billion USD in research and development to create sustainable product solutions.

One of our critical sustainability goals is to mitigate climate change while improving the efficiency of our operations. At our sites around the globe, we are focused on reducing energy consumption and greening our energy supply. We are proud that both our plants in Romania are recognized as best model and world class plants: Eaton Sarbi plant in Maramures was recognized as Model Plant for four years in a row, 2021 included, and won EMEA ES green UP, while our plant in Arad was awarded the World Class Plant Award for the last three 3 years and was EHS Award Winner rewarded by Green Up Steering committee for Indoor LED lighting changes with environmental Impact.”

DIGITAL DNA | GRASPING TECH, DIGITAL INNOVATION, CUSTOMER -DRIVEN, BUILDING NEW BRIDGES

“Business meetings are taking place online, video and audio, our communication is taking place online, our activity is coordinated online etc. 2022 comes with an improvement of all the things mentioned above and 5G-6G Internet networks will have a large amount of importance in the digitalization of the activities.”

2021 IN 3 KEY WORDS

“Transformation, digitalization, responsibility.”

2022 IN 3 KEY WORDS

“Awareness, knowledge, strength.”