ARVIND K SWARNKAR

Building a Sustainable Future through Innovation and Automation

For someone who started his professional career as a teaching staff in an engineering institute in West Bengal, India, the Managing Director of SAUTER Middle East, Arvind K. Swarnkar has come quite a long way.

For the electrical engineering graduate from Jabalpur Engineering College, it is his passion for his chosen field that drives Mr. Swarnkar to this day; and of course, his eagerness to lead a team of top performers to new frontiers of success, year on year.

Mr. Swarnkar hails from a small town in Madhya Pradesh. After completing his Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering from Jabalpur Engineering College, he began his illustrious corporate career in 1994. After a short tenure as a teaching staff, Mr. Swarnkar joined Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited in Delhi, kicking off his professional corporate career as a maintenance engineer. Says Swarnkar, “That is where I learned about various building technologies, including building automation systems for VAC, MEP, and ELV controls and monitoring. While working there, I simultaneously completed my MBA in Marketing.”

After three years at Ranbaxy, Mr. Swarnkar worked with core building automation companies such as SIEMENS and ABB (Using Automated Logic Corporation, USA products) as their sales head or business head, looking after pan India business. It was during this period that the small-town lad bloomed into a leader utilising his marketing and people skills and to build high performing teams that deliver. It was the stints with market leaders that would benefit Mr. Swarnkar later in his career.

It was also during his time at Ranbaxy, SIEMENS and ABB, Mr. Swarnkar focussed on Building Automation. He was based at Delhi NCR until he moved to UAE in 2005 to join Johnson Controls US' Abu Dhabi branch to spearhead their Building Automation and Extra Low Voltage systems business. In 2013, SAUTER contacted Mr. Swarnkar, asking him to consider joining the company as the Managing Director of their Middle East office in the UAE. He saw this as an opportunity to further his vision for sustainable living and building automation.

Since it involved partnership, along with some investment to be a shareholder, Mr. Swarnkar could join SAUTER in October 2014. Though SAUTER Middle East existed since 2009, it remained focused on some specific countries and selected projects as a strategy till 2014. He was entrusted with developing the business in the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries.

As a team in the Middle East, SAUTER enhanced its focus and grew the business and its market share rapidly. Today, SAUTER has distributors and solutions partners who have spread the reach of its products and systems in most countries in the region, including the UAE, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, and the rest of Middle East.

Mr. Swarnkar is more of a team player and motivates his team to perform better. He ensures that his team has a healthy work environment that motivates them to do their best and this boosts innovation and productivity of his team. His timely feedback and appreciation of the efforts put in by each and every member of his team has gone a long way for the continued growth of SAUTER in the Mena region.

Under Mr. Swarnkar, SAUTER replicated the same model in African countries such as Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Libya and many more under SAUTER Middle East. His experience in the industry and in various countries and his passion for building controls and technology drove him for the past three decades. SAUTER team spread across the Middle East and Swiss – Germany offices were crucial in the growth of business.

SAUTER keeps efforts focused keenly on its core business, Building Automation. The members of the team ensure that they are not indulging in other building systems, which might make them lose focus. This ensures that the company is leading the industry, innovating with the latest technologies, and offering the utmost quality of services. Customers' requirements and solutions to their various issues remain the company's top priority. The R&D department ensures that all products of SAUTER are technically miles ahead of competition. Currently, SAUTER is the only company that provides all products from field level to management level with IoT technology and is compatible to connect with the cloud using MQTT protocol. This helps it to handle big data while maintaining at a good speed and also to integrate the systems. The company's IoT technology at all levels ensures that any IoT-based software or system is able to connect and communicate with its products/ system. To make this possible, SAUTER needed to ensure that its microprocessor-based controllers like Modulo 6 and field devices possess sufficient built-in memory and speed.

The company also incorporates the best IT security systems using blockchain technology and features like Augmented reality and communication over WIFI/Bluetooth. The company always ensure that it had gateways and communication modules to communicate with products/ systems having conventional communication protocols. This helped the company ensure that buildings having legacy building automation systems can also communicate with its Biobased software and cloud using these gateways. SAUTER calls them 'Cloud Connectors.' Companies like Etisalat, which are into the business of digitalisation of buildings to monitor them remotely, are currently using SAUTER's cloud connectors. Today, most real estate developers, many government buildings, pharmaceutical plants, data centers, banks, electrical substations, industrial plants, hospitals, educational institutes, financial institutes, embassies, and shopping malls, among others, across the Middle East are using our products and services. With Mr. Swarnkar at the helm, SAUTER has become undoubtedly amongst the top leaders in this business in the region.

SAUTER has projects in regions such as Nairobi-Kenya, Ghana, Erbil, and many more including pharmaceutical companies, embassies for countries like Australia, and offices for companies like Facebook, were the most challenging ones due to various reasons. SAUTER's solution partners in these areas are its extended arms. Since the company can't reach everywhere through its own team, it has developed and trained solution partners in various countries.

Some of SAUTER's mega projects are Habtoor City and Dubai Commerce City Free zone in Dubai, Stock Exchange buildings and Novartis pharma plants in Cairo, and Data Centers and government buildings in Kuwait. Recently, Sinopharm in Abu Dhabi decided to instal SAUTER's systems for its massive plant in Kizad. This will be the largest pharma plant in the Middle East for COVID vaccine development. SAUTER China is an integral part of this effort, striving to ensure that the company is selected as the solutions provider for a Chinese pharma giant's UAE arm. Mr. Swarnkar believes that while rest of the Middle East will still have the construction business alive and thriving for decades, the UAE will be more focussed on industrial projects and Facility Management services for commercial/ residential buildings. SAUTER is gearing up to provide Building Automation as a Service (BAaS) to connect buildings and cities centrally. This will help the company offer central monitoring, maintenance & energy optimisation services, and reports Sauter's cloud connectors and excellent management software are ideal means to facilitate this.

According to Mr. Swarnkar, building technology should introduced in engineering syllabi at engineering colleges. Students need to learn about it and its potential during their studies itself. It can be a common subject for mechanical, electrical, electronics and communication, and computer sciences engineering streams. Mr. Swarnkar has a highly demanding career, both physically and mentally, and keeping the work-life balance is quite a challenge. He believes that a healthy and creative mind lives in a healthy body and spiritually healthy environment. He devotes at least one hour to exercise such as walking, running, going to the gym, and doing yoga every morning. He indulges in a different exercise each day. He makes sure that a light activity such as yoga or swimming is done in the evening, followed by regular meditation.

During the weekend, this businessman indulges in high-octane exercises such as long-distance (50–100 km depending on time available) cycling on my road bike, kayaking or paddle boarding, tennis, and many more. He also has regular visits to doctors and health instructors'. Swarnkar's family (wife and two daughters) is his support system for maintaining good mental and physical health and balance at work. His extended family in India has been so supportive to make sure that his responsibilities to all family members are not so challenging to expedite. He keeps the four pillars of success strong and watered enough. These are physical and mental health, work and my colleagues at work, family and friends, and duties towards 'Mathrubhumi and Karmabhumi.' A foodie, he loves Indian vegetarian dishes and Lebanese cuisine. Mr. Swarnkar'sfavouritebook is 'Autobiography of a Yogi' and he loves to holiday in Zermatt and Engelberg in Switzerland.

Contact: +971 56 615 5987
Email: arvind.swarnkar@ae.sauter-bc.com
akswarnkar@hotmail.com