Picture this: you’re a category manager heading into a high-stakes supplier negotiation. Just a few years ago, you’d spend two solid weeks stitching together cost data from SAP, spreadsheets, and half a dozen BI dashboards only to find your numbers were already stale. Now imagine clicking one button and having every price delta, waste factor, and commodity forecast handed to you in seconds. Real-time insights. Zero guesswork. Total confidence.
That’s exactly what Schneider Electric’s procurement team can do today, thanks to CAP (Cost Analytics Power), a Quickbase-powered AI app that just earned Schneider a 2025 Hackett Innovation Award in the Plan-to-Source-to-Make-to-Deliver category.
But this isn’t just a story about awards; it’s a story about what happens when a team reimagines its work, rethinks its tools, and unlocks new levels of visibility, speed, and savings.
Why This Win Matters
Every year, The Hackett Group honors companies driving real innovation. Schneider stood out for turning a smart idea into real-world results fast.
- Fast to build. CAP went from idea to rollout in just six months, proof that the right platform and the right team can turn bold ideas into reality. Even better, it was built by the people closest to the work, showing what happens when experts become solution builders.
- Fast to deliver value. The tool delivered a full return on investment in under three months, and it continues to uncover cost-saving opportunities at scale.
- Built to handle complexity. CAP processes more than 30 million transactions annually, consolidating siloed data and surfacing insights that traditional systems miss.
As Raul Granados, Sr. Director of Global Supply Chain Data & Analytics at Schneider Electric, put it:
“What used to take weeks to prepare for supplier negotiations now takes seconds.”
Innovation, Powered by Collaboration
CAP wasn’t born in a vacuum. It was a side-by-side build between Schneider’s Global Supply Chain Data & Analytics group and its Procurement Center of Excellence. One team knew the pain points; the other knew how to turn Quickbase’s canvas into a decision augmentation powerhouse. Together, they created a solution that didn’t just digitize an old process; they reinvented it.
From Challenge to Impact: How CAP Delivers
No surprise that CAP is now the highest-rated productivity tool used across Schneider’s global procurement team, with 500+ users and growing.
What Makes This a Quickbase Success Story
Schneider’s journey with Quickbase shows what’s possible when business and technology teams work together and have the tools to move quickly.
- Speed to execution. Quickbase let Schneider prototype, test, and roll out CAP in about six months, faster than a traditional ERP enhancement cycle.
- Adaptable to complex environments. Quickbase’s connectors pulled live data from multiple ERPs and market feeds while maintaining performance and compliance rules.
- Scalability. Governance features made it easy to onboard hundreds of users across regions without a day of downtime.
And Schneider isn’t an outlier. From Conexon’s fiberoptic rollouts to Lighthouse Electric’s prefab tracking, Quickbase customers routinely push the envelope on AI and automation, and the awards shelf shows it.
Voices from the field
The Bigger Picture
Schneider Electric’s win spotlights a larger trend: it’s proof that AI doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or risky when you have the right platform and the right people driving it. From simplifying field inspections to complex supply chain analytics, organizations are using it to build, refine, and scale AI solutions that win awards — and, more importantly, deliver tangible business results.
Schindler’s story is proof that bold ideas, the right tools, and a great team can go a long way. Huge congratulations to the Schindler team for turning a great idea into real impact.
