In an exclusive Q&A with tED magazine, Sonepar President & CEO Philippe Delpech discusses the company’s five-year transformation, its $560 million investment in enterprise AI, expanded distribution automation, and digital growth. The conversation also explores supplier collaboration, global electrification and the opportunities shaping Sonepar’s U.S. business.
Q. Sonepar held a global Strategic Supplier Summit in Paris last week, bringing together more than 300 executives from leading suppliers around the world. What was the focus of the summit?
A. Growth and transformation were the central themes. At the 2021 Supplier Summit in Zurich, Sonepar leaders from around the world outlined our ambitions to transform our supply chain and the way we transact with customers through best-in-industry digital technology. Five years later, we are proud to show that we have achieved the goals we set and demonstrate the positive impact on our partnerships with strategic suppliers. With 45 automated central distribution centers and Spark, our global omnichannel digital platform already deployed in 12 countries is working. Sonepar’s digital sales now total $13.8 billion, of which nearly $4 billion were generated through Spark.
Q. You presented Sonepar’s five-year transformation journey and explored its key business priorities. What were the main points?
A. The future of electrical distribution is not simply about selling products. It is about bringing together supply chains, digital capabilities, data, and expertise to make the customer journey simpler and more efficient. Sonepar has built these foundations; our focus now is on turning those capabilities into customer value and growth.
This requires even closer alignment and data exchange with our suppliers so that we can capture the opportunities created by global electrification, the energy transition, automation, infrastructure, modernization, and AI.
I also announced Sonepar’s $560 million investment to move from individual AI use cases to enterprise intelligence at scale. We have already deployed AI tools to forecast demand, optimize inventory, personalize the customer experience, and accelerate quotations, enabling our sales teams to spend more time advising customers.
Enterprise intelligence is the next step in our nearly $4 billion investment in supply chain and digital transformation. As the world electrifies, we need to deliver at greater scale. AI, trusted data, and a resilient supply chain will be critical to achieving this while creating greater value for customers, suppliers, and our associates.
Q. The Possible Future Workshops sounded very interesting. What were you encouraging attendees to imagine?
A. The workshops took place at Sonepar’s internal executive meeting. We asked our associates to imagine an industry being reshaped by two forces: global electrification and the rapid development of AI. Electrification is expanding opportunities across our industry, while AI is changing how we serve customers, make decisions, and collaborate across the value chain.
The purpose was not to predict exactly what the future would look like, but to challenge ourselves and our suppliers to think differently about what is possible and how we can shape that future together.
Q. What did you discuss about the future of supplier collaboration?
A. Removing friction: we are focused on building an automated, transparent supply chain. Today, 68% of orders are picked automatically, compared with less than 50% in 2021. By 2030, automated picking lines will handle more than 80% of orders.
Data sharing: we shared our vision of a future in which AI agents help us transact business through Spark. We envisage a shared language that enables closer collaboration—a form of collective intelligence that improves productivity and efficiency around the clock.
The Chairman of Colam Entreprendre, Sonepar’s holding company, reaffirmed the family’s commitment to long-term ownership and support for Sonepar’s business priorities. He also emphasized the importance of ensuring that the 700 family members and 46,000 associates remain proud of the company and enthusiastic about its future growth and opportunities.
Q. You created an immersive experience that guided your guests through the global transformation Sonepar began in 2020. What was its purpose?
A. We wanted to make Sonepar’s transformation tangible and show how our investments come together to create value for customers and suppliers. Rather than presenting a series of separate initiatives, we invited guests to visit the Sonepar Transformation Experience so they could see concretely the complete ecosystem we are building.
The ecosystem starts with sustainability: helping customers make more informed choices and turning environmental information into action, supported by more than 400 sustainability initiatives worldwide. It includes our supply chain, where our ambition is the “perfect order”: reliable, sustainable, and delivered on time and in full, wherever customers need it. It also encompasses a 360° omnichannel customer experience, connecting e-commerce, mobile, our sales teams, branches, and logistics at scale.
Trusted data, AI, and much closer supplier collaboration underpin all of this. The experience showed how these increasingly interconnected capabilities allow us to serve customers more efficiently, make better decisions, and strengthen our supplier partnerships. Ultimately, it demonstrated both how far Sonepar has come and the platform we have built to accelerate the next phase of our transformation.
Q. You also met privately with the CEOs of strategic suppliers. What is on everyone’s mind?
A. The discussions were private, so I will not go into specifics. However, one theme connected many of the issues we discussed: the accelerating electrification of the world. From the energy transition and infrastructure to automation, data centers and AI, electricity is becoming ever more central to economic growth. The opportunity for Sonepar and our strategic suppliers is significant, but capturing it will require closer collaboration, strong supply chains, innovation, and the ability to deliver the right solutions to customers at scale.
Q. How do you view the opportunities in the U.S. market for Sonepar’s U.S. brands?
A. Sonepar is no longer simply a distributor. We are already a supply chain, technology, data, and services company. Since 2021, we have invested nearly $4 billion, including nearly $3 billion in distribution center automation and $1 billion in the Spark digital platform.
The Americas are central to Sonepar’s growth story, with sales of $19 billion across eight countries, representing 51% of Group sales. In the United States alone, revenue has grown from $6.7 billion in 2017 to more than $16.5 billion in 2025.
The U.S. offers significant long-term growth opportunities for Sonepar. Data center development, industrial expansion, electrification, and growing demand for sustainable power solutions are reshaping the market. The need to expand and strengthen the electrical grid is creating further opportunities across the power distribution ecosystem.
Sonepar enters this period of growth from a position of strength. Our scale, supply chain network, digital and AI investments, deep capabilities in serving industrial customers and contractors, strong inventory position, and best-in-class utility business provide a powerful platform for continued growth. We intend to build on this through organic investment and targeted M&A, expanding our scale and capabilities as we work toward becoming the premier electrical distributor in the U.S.
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