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Change management involves a lot more than just SAP

“Philips offers enormous scope for self development”

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“A Philips production facility in Asia now operates in the same way as one in the Netherlands. We started this harmonization process about ten years ago. Wanting to introduce the same working methods everywhere in the world, means asking a lot of your entire workforce: in particular, flexibility and a clear disposition towards change. In our approach to ‘change management’, we’re concerned with a lot more than just SAP. We’ve started up a drastic process of change and, to me, monitoring that process properly and giving it leadership is a major challenge…” Well considered words from Peter Wellink (45), Team Leader, Supply Chain Execution at Philips Business Application Services (P-BAS).

P-BAS was set up two years ago to act as a single umbrella organization for IT consultants from a variety of product divisions. In his daily work, Peter is principally involved in Consumer Electronics. Following his studies in industrial engineering, he joined Philips in 1986, and was one of the pioneers of the ‘FIL-program’. In the mid-90s, this program had as its objective the shifting of Finance, IT and Logistic processes onto SAP on a worldwide scale. Later other business processes were added to the list, and the task has now largely been completed: 90% of CE turnover is now in SAP. Peter Wellink: “That doesn’t mean that I or my group of some 30 consultants will soon be redundant. The ever growing insight into business processes is bringing with it more and more new wishes and demands from our production facilities and national organizations. Many projects are now all about the refurbishing of business processes and adaptation of the way we initially applied SAP. As team leader, I’m principally concerned with ‘the big picture’: content discussions, fine-tuning, and contact with the customers within CE to make sure they’re satisfied with our service.” Details and execution are looked after by Peter’s team members who are at work all over the world. Much of this kind of work is carried out by IT companies in India.

New ways of thinking
Peter has now been with Philips for twenty years, although he was actually on the payroll of a supplier for years following the sale of the business unit he worked for to a third party. “ I’ve been back on the Philips payroll since 2001. To me, the advantages of working for Philips include: being right up close to the business as an IT person, being in daily contact with it, and keeping abreast of the changes in the business process. Things like outsourcing of facilities... Farming out production while still very much keeping a finger in the pie with regard to the quality of your product demands a whole new way of thinking, a whole new approach to your processes. This sort of thing really interests me. It makes demands on your mobility, flexibility, creativity. Philips offers a huge amount of freedom when it comes to self-development and choosing your own direction. From IT you can cross over to business and, vice-versa, we’re currently trying to get people from business into the SAP Competence Center with a view of creating an optimal stream of know-how and experience.”

‘We really do things together’
Peter also sees the short distance to the business as one of the success factors in the ‘single core story’. “I find this one of the strong points in the Philips approach: we really do things together. When you’ve been working for Philips for a while, you genuinely start to feel that way: the feeling of solidarity, the motivation to pull together. ‘One Philips’, we keep on emphasizing this to help prevent the circulation of negative ‘we and them’ stories. SAP strengthens our unity by offering opportunities to interweave functions and by making our mutual dependence on each other crystal clear.”

A fixed workplace
P-BAS is in line with the Philips top’s strategy of striving towards ‘One Philips’, and a growth in SAP activities is certainly to be expected. Peter Wellink: “The idea is that after a few years in one division it will be easy to cross over to another with a view to further broadening one’s horizons. The possibility of exchanging people on a project basis too, will become much more feasible. In the past the tendency was to say ‘hands off my workforce’ but that’s now a thing of the past. However, if someone says ‘I’d rather just stay where I am’, there’s nothing to worry about. Your own choices determine your career and you decide for yourself what you feel to be most important. In my case, for example, the fact that I had a regular, fixed workplace was a reason for me to accept a full-time post. I live in Eindhoven and so I can go to work on my bike. I no longer have to be stuck in traffic in my car because I have to run about from place to place as a consultant… even though my work here actually involves consultancy. Ideal. I do still occasionally have to travel, of course, but that’s generally by plane to Asia or America. Naturally, preferences in this area do depend to a large extent on age and personality. Lots of people who are regularly involved for longer periods in overseas facility or national implementations have the time of their lives there. The simple fact that Philips puts you at liberty to make choices and decide how you want to shape your own life and work – that’s what I call a huge plus.”

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