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“For whoever wants to grow, the sky is the limit”

Customer Service at Philips Medical Systems now in a single worldwide system

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Shifting all Philips Medical Systems customer service activities (sales and service) into just one worldwide SAP ‘core’. That is the challenge that the team led by Danny de Klein since July 1st 2006 is still working on. And they’ve certainly been working successfully. Danny (33 and Team Leader Customer Services GLASS): “Since we started in 2003, some 50 countries have been introduced into this core, and that means that the greater part of this process of worldwide harmonization is now behind us. We will have come a long way with this by 2009, with all sales and service organizations working uniformly. Clearly that will result in a huge number of benefits in terms of manageability and cost reduction.”

Danny joined Philips permanently in August 2005 after having earlier got to know the company as an SAP Consultant. What was his reason for giving up his ‘free-and-easy’ way of life? “The company’s international character appealed to me, as well as the opportunity Philips offers to work on attractive SAP-related projects. But it was also time for me to start to let go of the actual SAP content and begin to develop myself further in the management field. Philips offers me the right opportunities to do that. If you show initiative and want to grow, you’re given support in all sorts of ways. And that’s not restricted to just one division; ‘the sky is the limit’ and all divisions are accessible, both in the IT and the business fields.”

A high regard for IT
Currently, Danny is still in the IT field at Philips Medical Systems, where he has no complaints about a lack of either dynamism or growth. “Philips Medical Systems is one of the strategic branches the Philips concern will be building on in the coming years. With all the acquisitions that are taking place, the horizons of the IT landscape will be getting broader than ever. My department of 60 employees – still growing – is charged with as part of GLASS (Global Applications Shared Services) to bring unity to the new landscape. A wide-ranging task that, besides sales and service, also encompasses a hefty dose of logistics. Fortunately, Philips management has a high regard for IT and that makes the work a lot easier. To us, customer service is one of the primary processes, which is logical, considering how important service is in our business. When a machine is sold to e.g. a hospital, a service contract is almost always arranged immediately.”

Tension between uniformity and local wishes
Bringing worldwide unity to the various processes is possible only if national and cultural differences are properly recognized. Danny de Klein: “The advantage of SAP is that it is so flexible that it’s possible to make local adaptations, e.g. in order to comply with local/regional legislation. In practice, this kind of dialogue between national organizations is very important: in widely ranging scoping sessions, wishes and needs take on forms that are later catered to by the IT system. On the other hand, we are working on a centralized system that aims at a high level of standardization and uniformity. Between these two poles, there’s obviously got to be an interesting degree of tension...”

The special taste of the Philips culture
Many internationally operating companies will recognize this tension but, to Danny, the Philips culture has a very special taste. “If you look at the people who work for us as a globally operating organization, you see that it basically breaks down into three national cultures: Dutch, American and Indian. Besides of course lots of people with other nationalities. “As I see it, it’s exactly this mixture of cultures that makes things so attractive. India is strongly hierarchical: the manager decides what’s to be done. In the Netherlands, there’s much more discussion as equals, and the Americans conform within a real performance culture: get on with the job and we’ll have a meeting if it’s really necessary. A huge amount of attention is devoted to this mix – the specific Philips culture. For example, internal cultural awareness training sessions are held in which, clearly, other cultures are also examined. If we are to cooperate successfully in a worldwide organization, awareness of differences is of the essence.”

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