Schneider Electric Exec: Power Infrastructure Assessment Is Unlocking Big Opportunities For MSPs

‘While everyone is chasing the same stories, fighting for the same mind share, power is actually an open lane for you to differentiate,’ says Schneider Electric Director of IT Channel Program Strategy Jon LoBello.

Schneider Electric’s breakthrough Power Infrastructure Assessment software is driving significant new revenue growth opportunities for MSPs, Schneider Electric Director of IT Channel Program Strategy Jon LoBello told hundreds of MSPs at a breakout session Tuesday at XChange August 2025.

“While everyone is chasing the same stories, fighting for the same mind share, power is actually an open lane for you to differentiate,” said LoBello in a session titled “Beyond The Box: Turn Power Into Strategic Value.” “Think of it differently and it can unlock more doors than you might think. In fact, it can unlock your next big customer acquisition.”

XChange August 2025 is being hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company in Denver this week.

The Power Infrastructure Assessment is making the $38 billion power management provider as well known for its revenue-driving software that is identifying power shortcomings as its UPS and power management data center racks.

“You likely know Schneider Electric as APC, a UPS hardware vendor, a great one at that,” he said. “But what you might not realize is we are also equally passionate about software, and Schneider Electric is very serious about it and very good at it. With great software you can unlock opportunities that you can’t reach [with hardware] on its own.”

The Power Infrastructure Assessment is, in fact, opening the door for MSPs to start a conversation with customers on how they manage their power rather than just showing up with a catalogue of UPSes, said LoBello. Those new conversations are resulting in MSPs building a “stickier, more strategic” relationship with their customers, said LoBello.

“This is an easy compelling way for you to start a [power management] conversation with your customers,” said LoBello. “You can use it as a hunting tool. You can use it as a consultation tool, or you can just use it as a revenue-driving tool. It is even vendor-agnostic.”

Larry Hann, director of channel field sales North and digital services strategy for Schneider Electric, said the Power Infrastructure Assessment software is leading to significant cost savings for customers by proactively reducing downtime.

“UPS is the No. 1 reason for downtime,” said Hann. “In 2025 most customers know they need to buy a UPS when they are putting distributed IT equipment into their IT environment. But for some reason, they think that the job is done. They buy the UPS, and they basically set it up and forget it or they just manage it reactively. Because of this they have no visibility into what is going on with that UPS or they are reacting to an event that already happened, and this causes downtime.”

A study by the Ponemon Institute, a research firm based in Traverse City, Mich., found that 25 percent of IT system downtime is caused by unmanaged UPSes.

The reactive management of UPSes is costing customers valuable “resources and time” as they move reactively with additional “truck rolls” and extended downtime, said Hann.

In fact, a customer not actively managing its fleet of 25 UPSes over a six-year period saw a tangible loss from downtime of $8,200 along with another $4,500 in intangible costs over that period, said Hann.

“The reality is most customers have no idea of the magnitude of these costs to their business,” he said. “When we sit down and educate them, it is a surprise.”

The Power Infrastructure Assessment software includes a downtime report that shows how much time has been lost because of power outages where the UPS ran out of battery. In addition, it shows how much downtime was prevented by the UPS being in place.

That is opening the door to consulting and managed services opportunities aimed at proactively preventing downtime.

The Schneider Electric software also provides a device security assessment that identifies any potential vulnerabilities that might be associated with those devices, including firmware and password shortcomings.

Customers that see the results from the Power Infrastructure Assessment are anxious to “standardize” UPS support to free up their people to focus on providing higher value to their customers, said Hann.

“There’s a high propensity to want to outsource this and get it off their plate,” said Hann. “The problem is there is typically not a budget for this, and they don’t know how to do it. But we at Schnieder Electric can help you to provide that value to them.”

Hann said the Power Infrastructure Assessment is putting data “insight” into the hands of MSPs, which is driving a consultative engagement.

MSPs are already using the Power Infrastructure Assessment as a “hunting tool” armed with rich data on every customer with a 10-year look back at their UPS activity, said Hann. “We have visibility into the number of calls they have made into our tech support line so we can use that to show how much time they are spending reactively managing UPSes,” he said.

Furthermore, Schneider Electric has an “edge calculator” that shows exactly how much it is costing to manage their UPSes today and what the cost would be to outsource it to an MSP, said Hann.

The Power Infrastructure Assessment software looks at what UPS devices are in that IT environment along with warranties and services and the health of those UPSes. That includes an analysis into exactly when the UPS batteries are going to fail.

“We actually provide you with a score of what the UPS looks like based on the age of the battery and also some analysis on the wear of the battery,” said Hann.

Finally, the Power Infrastructure Assessment provides an executive summary to drive a conversation on the next steps, said Hann. That is leading MSPs to use the software as part of their managed services practice.

“You can use this to go expand your reach into your existing customers, talking to them about managed power or even using this as a way to get into a customer to position your value and then expand into the other services you can provide to them,” said Hann.

One MSP has already found success using the Power Infrastructure Assessment as a “hunting tool,” capturing new customers as part of a quarterly review with their Cisco enterprise customers, said Hann. “They have been able to bring in two new logos to their business,” he said.

One of those customers was a company the MSP had been pursuing for six years, said Hann. “By using this, the partner was able to bring on that new logo by thinking outside the box, expanding the rest of the value in their business,” he said.

In another case, a new Schneider Electric MSP partner was able to capture a $200,000 deal with a customer that had spent 20 hours on the phone in all of 2024 troubleshooting its UPSes. The MSP used that information to go and work with the customer on a plan that resulted in some excess E-Rate monies used to fund the project.

Hann urged MSPs to move forward with the Power Infrastructure Assessment as a great opportunity to expand their business. “Come talk to us at our booth, and let’s build together,” he said.

Manuel Villa, founder and president of VIA Technology, San Antonio, said he is excited about on-boarding Schneider Electric’s Power Infrastructure Assessment software as a managed services power management game-changer for his business.

“They have got a great solution that is going to help us grow our business,” he said. “We are planning to go target public sector organizations that don’t have the bandwidth to check their UPSes.”

Villa said he expects the new service offering to help his company drive hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in new business as it helps customers prevent downtime. “We are going to use it as a hunting tool,” he said.