France’s Schneider Electric’s recent acquisition of the U.K.’s Aveva Group will play to the strengths of both companies, said Schneider’s CEO and chairman, Jean-Pascal Tricoire.

“The sense of this transaction, the reason why we do it, is related to the wider environment of smart manufacturing, so the combination of connected shop floors going into a set of software to make your manufacturing more agile, more productive, more competitive,” Tricoire told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.

Tricoire added that the advantages of the deal come from Schneider’s edge in the digitization of operations and Aveva’s similar strength in engineering.

Earlier this month, Britain’s Aveva Group said it agreed to combine with Schneider Electric‘s software business to create a London-listed leader in industrial software worth more than 3 billion pounds ($4.06 billion), Reuters reported.

“We are somewhere in the episode two of the Life of the Internet. Twenty years ago, we started the Internet of People and it changed everything—the way we communicate, the way we live. Today, we are starting the Internet of Things,” Tricoire said.

Source: cnbc china
Schneider Electric CEO: Aveva acquisition combines software and engineering strengths