Diversity may not seem like the most obvious key to success for an IT company, but for Delta Electronics EMEA President and General Manager Dalip Sharma, it’s one of the most effective tools in his kit. “It’s very valuable,” Dalip says. “Especially when the world is changing so rapidly and throwing up numerous opportunities and challenges all at once. Using diversity to our advantage means being able to move faster, identify those opportunities and prepare early for the challenges.”
It is, he admits, easier said than done. “You can imagine when a company grows as ours has, from a 15-person company in Taiwan 50 years ago to an international company with over 80,000 employees worldwide now, you’ve got people coming from so many different cultural and professional backgrounds,” he continues. “As a manager, it is important to bring your staff all together onto one platform with one company culture, and it’s been quite an experience for me.”
But it’s an experience Dalip says he’s fortunate to have had. Originally an electronics engineer in India, Dalip was brought into the Delta family when it acquired his employer at the time, Ascom, in 2003. Soon after, Dalip was asked to lead the India team, playing a role in the company’s growth from a single-digit US million-dollar business at the time of the acquisition to almost 50 times that figure by the time he was offered the President and General Manager role at Delta EMEA.
He says working on the culture side of the business still keeps him the busiest in his current role overseeing Delta’s EMEA operations. “If you look at the values of the EMEA organisation, we emphasise inclusivity, empathy, innovation and speed,” he adds. “It helps immensely to create a shared vision and a belief that together we can make it.”
As big as the India team was, EMEA eclipses it. Roughly 2,700 people work across Delta’s 33 sales offices, 15 research and development (R&D) centres and four factories in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, offering solutions for which Delta has become renowned: automation, power electronics, telecom power, data centre solutions and, increasingly, renewable energy technology and EV charging. “Even that is changing as we build our capabilities,” he points out. “We’ve been moving up the value chain from being a component supplier a decade ago to products and now to solutions and applications.”
Delta may be one of the leading suppliers of power and thermal management solutions, but the COVID-19 pandemic has brought new opportunities in the market, with Delta offering the the right solutions to fulfil these needs.
“The pandemic gave the information and communications technology industry a big boost,” Dalip stresses. “Every year, we see that data traffic is doubling. Delta has the telecom infrastructure equipment to enable further 5G deployment, and the data centre infrastructure solutions to meet the growth of data traffic, which has picked up across EMEA over the past two years. We expect this to accelerate even more in coming years.”
It helps immensely to create a shared vision and a belief that together we can make it.
Renewable energy
Another megatrend Delta hopes to take the lead in is renewable energy. “We have been in the renewable energy market for a long time, such as solar inverters,” he says. “Delta already has quite a substantial footprint in the renewable energy infrastructure itself.”
That footprint even extends to car manufacturers, whose powertrain components are supplied by Delta. “If you take any electric vehicle, we have at least double digit components inside it,” Dalip reveals. “When that car hits the road, we’re playing a very active role in enabling the electric vehicle charging infrastructure. There will be a lot of growth to come in this area.”
It’s the same story for manufacturing automation, which has also benefited from the pandemic era. “Smart factories deploy more automation to reduce human dependence, thereby increasing throughput and productivity,” Dalip explains. “Delta offers total automation solutions, from hardware to software, and we have quite a lot of accumulated experience in running smart factories. We bring that experience, along with our products and services, to the world.”
That’s not without its challenges, however. Dalip says market leaders and early adopters of the latest technology are often beset by unknowns. “But Delta has the benefit of the very deep and clear vision of our founding fathers,” he says. “In 2021, we celebrated 50 years since founding, and that’s because we were successfully able to merge sustainability and business.”
It’s a combination Dalip believes is critical for success. “They’re so intertwined,” he declares. “It’s one of the reasons we’re always trying to be a responsible corporate citizen.”
The company’s mission, he explains, is to provide innovative, clean and energy efficient solutions for a better tomorrow. “We leverage our core competence in high-efficiency products and solutions and our ESG-embedded business model to address key environment issues such as climate change.”
For instance, anytime the company develops a new product or technology or solution, it is always innovated with the highest power efficiency level in mind and as much real renewable material as possible, “even down to packaging,” Dalip notes.
The importance of a company’s ESG and sustainability efforts has increased tremendously with the rise of environmental awareness, and we are proud to say this is part of Delta’s DNA.
The buildings where its team of engineers are busy pioneering these environmentally-friendly technologies are also green, with a low environmental impact. “Today, Delta has 31 green buildings worldwide, including factories and two green data centres,” he continues, adding that these initiatives have already saved 18.09 million kilowatt hours of electricity and 11.142 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
A leader in sustainability
For over a decade, Delta has been listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. And, in 2021, it joined the RE100 – a commitment to reach energy neutral by 2030. “It’s a very big commitment – other companies are still targeting 2050 – but we believe we can do it comfortably.”
Sustainable practices have also become a key criteria when it comes to choosing supply partners. “We need to have similar-minded companies working together for the greater good of the environment,” he says.
The world of technology is moving fast – so fast that gaps between leaders don’t have time to widen too much. “We’re not living in the 80s or 90s, where making profit is everything to determine a company’s value,” Dalip adds. “The importance of a company’s ESG and sustainability efforts has increased tremendously with the rise of environmental awareness, and we are proud to say this is part of Delta’s DNA.
“We have been dedicated to this for 50 years already, and of course, this will be continued for the next 50 years and much more.”
Delta’s secret to doing just that is simple: to leverage its core competence in high-efficiency technologies and its ESG-embedded business model to continuously commit to creating a more sustainable future.
