Industrials & Electronics

To succeed in the decade ahead, manufacturers of machinery and industrial automation need to reinforce resilience so they can navigate economic turbulence, digitize their operations and services, and develop product offerings to address environmental sustainability and green technologies.

Companies focused on manufacturing machinery, components, and equipment for industrial automation have two critical roles to play over the next few years: First, their products enable other industrial companies to transform into highly automated, digital, and sustainable businesses. Second, they need to understand and successfully harness the top trends transforming the machinery and industrial-automation industry if they want to succeed in the decade ahead.

How do we help clients?

Building Technologies

We advise companies on how to improve the effectiveness and extend the lifecycle of their products and services for building automation, elevators, HVAC, lighting, security, and fire safety.

We help building technology companies respond to today’s challenges and position themselves for long-term growth. This includes addressing such topics as demand fluctuation, lifecycle profitability, opportunities in Asia and Latin America, energy efficiency and changing regulations, and the increasing influence of IT companies in building automation.

Our Industrials & Electronics Practice serves multinational organizations, niche product companies, large conglomerates, and small and medium-sized enterprises around the world. Our global presence uniquely positions us to help clients analyze regional construction trends and identify opportunities in mature markets and emerging ones.

We advise clients on a range of topics, including strategy, organization, and service operations. Our consultants, many of whom have backgrounds in engineering, electronics, and high tech, understand the intricacies of research and development, manufacturing, and supply chain. Having supported many design-to-value efforts, we have deep expertise in how to optimize the performance and cost of building technology products. We also have experience advising on service contracts and service operations, both of which are increasingly important to our clients.

We support clients in the following areas:

Building automation - We advise building automation clients on evolving market conditions—including the increasing influence of IT networking and energy services companies and the importance of big data and advanced analytics capabilities. We also support clients seeking alliances and strategic partnerships.
Elevators - We help leading global manufacturers of elevators, escalators, and moving walkways respond to urbanization, technological disruption, and other trends that are transforming their industry. We also work with them to make the best use of connectivity, advanced analytics, and digital tools when creating solutions. Among other benefits, our efforts allow clients to increase their understanding of the customer base and improve maintenance procedures.
Heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) - We help clients develop and maintain energy-efficient HVAC products, respond to changing regulations, and identify opportunities to improve cost.
Lighting - We advise building technology clients on the global lighting market and LED technology. Specific topics include LED cost, energy efficiency, market penetration and opportunity; positioning in the component, light source, and luminaire value chain; and consumer perspectives on lighting by geography.
Security and fire - We support clients as they navigate an increasingly dynamic market driven by regional regulations and codes, digitalization, and the demand for integrated systems with remote access. Our consultants have perspectives on intelligent response fire and security technology and service operations in a variety of buildings, including airports and other large public spaces.

Distribution

Helping distributors achieve excellence in an age of rapid change, growing competition, and rising expectations. Now more than ever, distributors need to move fast to remain competitive.

Fijishi Distribution brings unrivaled expertise, experience, and proprietary solutions to address our clients’ most pressing challenges and help distributors deploy distinctive strategies, improve financial performance, and prepare for a future of continued evolution.

Fijishi Distribution serves the leading distributors in every sector, including industrials, technology and electronics, food and beverage, healthcare, consumer, and materials.

Fijishi Distribution helps clients set a clear strategic vision and identify and address targeted functional opportunities for growth.

Drive end-to-end pricing excellence through well-defined strategy, analytics, systems & tools
Develop value-creating strategies leveraging customer insights, innovation, M&A, business building and new capabilities
Deploy a go-to-market approach enabled by rigorous customer segmentation
Optimize logistics and distribution costs by reducing transportation costs and improving warehouse ops
Improve working capital through supplier management, data driven inventory, and AR excellence
Accelerate cost transformation enabled by automated processes and optimized organizational design

Machinery

We work with leading international machinery companies to make distinctive, lasting, and substantial performance improvements.
The machinery industry is quite diverse and fragmented, creating challenges for our clients.

They typically operate in the lower-volume business-to-business market yet maintain a truly global footprint. As they target high-growth markets around the world, they are facing a new wave of competition from emerging-market countries, and they need agile business and operational models to manage the volatility in market demand.

In order to effectively serve our clients, we have built a committed group of experts focused purely on machinery topics in many different sectors. In addition to core areas such as machine tools, we also have expertise in other segments, including the following:

Food processing - Our expertise on recent industry developments, including the growth of emerging markets and shifting consumer preferences, allows us to provide solutions and tools that help companies maintain their recent momentum and satisfy growing demand.
Flow control - We assist providers of pumps, valves, compressors and other flow-control equipment in developing strategies to suit evolving demand patterns and ensure future success.
Packaging - This is another sector undergoing rapid change. We use our knowledge of trends reshaping the market to help packaging-equipment providers improve margins in an increasingly competitive landscape.

We understand the challenges faced by machinery clients, including small organizations and those in high-volume industries. We blend this industry perspective with time-tested business acumen to deliver superior results, fine-tune strategies, and uncover detailed customer insights. We also help companies deepen their core competencies in engineering and product design.

Robotics and Industrial Automation

We help the makers of industrial controls, drives, and motors keep pace with automation technology and navigate a fragmented value chain.

The demand for automation technology is growing as companies across industries look for ways to streamline and speed production and manufacturing. This creates a significant opportunity for the makers and service providers of manufacturing control and execution systems, electric motors and drives, sensors, regulators, and robotics. We help these companies capture market opportunities and address the challenges associated with increasingly complex automation systems, fragmented value chains, diverse customer requirements, and the growing emphasis on software.

From large conglomerates and multinationals to small product specialists and integrators, our Industrials & Electronics Practice serves a range of companies. Our consultants have deep expertise in the manufacturing methods and requirements of discrete industries, such as automotive and assembly, as well as process industries, such as pulp and paper and bulk chemicals. We have a unique understanding of our clients’ customers, the industries in which they work, and the trends that shape those industries. Our experts also bring the latest thinking on automation technology to each client project.

We advise clients on growth strategy, organization and capability building, research and development and product architecture, design-to-value, supply chain, purchasing, and go-to-market strategies. Last, because software is increasingly important to our clients’ hardware, we serve clients on the topics of software amelioration and software capability building.

Power Equipment

We help power equipment companies benefit from technological and operational advances, while managing market volatility and continually changing regulations.

The makers of power equipment and technology face a unique set of challenges. Energy prices continue to fluctuate. Renewables are gaining momentum, as a growing number of countries reconsider their energy use and mix. Regulations are much less fixed than in the past. Technology is evolving rapidly in some parts of the industry, while other parts are under pressure of commoditization. Unexpected players in analogous industries are becoming competitors. Our Industrial & Electronics Practice helps companies turn these strategic challenges into manageable transitions or opportunities. From power generation to storage, transmission and distribution, we support clients in all phases of the power supply chain:

Power generation - We advise the equipment firms that make gas and steam turbines, boilers, and related fossil fuel products. We also support nuclear and renewable energy – solar, wind, hydro, and biomass – equipment manufacturers. We serve established companies and startups on strategy and operations, among other topics. Our consultants and specialists have extensive experience in product teardowns, including a recent effort to optimize the cost of a 400-ton gas turbine.
Power storage - From well-established manufacturers of pumped hydro equipment to emerging players in the battery space, we advise a range of power storage technology firms. Our consultants have deep expertise in technological assessments of utility scale storage equipment, battery applications in mobility, and other timely topics. For example, we have developed a proprietary battery material database that details the attributes and value of competing technologies.
Power transmission and distribution - We work with the companies that develop power transmission and distribution products and systems -- such as, cables, transformers, switchgear -- and the solutions that support those products. We also advise the service providers that perform inspection and maintenance, migration and upgrades, network consults, and training. Our global presence uniquely positions us to support clients in developed and developing markets on topics ranging from updating electricity infrastructure and stabilizing the grid, to rural electrification and building a grid from scratch. In addition, our consultants and experts have perspectives on high voltage direct current systems, flexible AC transmission systems, high temperature superconducting cables, ultra high voltage transmission, and smart grids.