Ladies & Gentlemen,
A very good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the Media.
It gives me great pleasure to stand in front of you this evening, this time to share with you an exiting chapter in the annals of Philips, namely the launch of our new Brand Promise together with the new brand campaign.
This is a worldwide exercise across all 60 countries where we operate.
At the same time, I am also honored to introduce you to Mr Enderson Guimaraes, Head of Global Brand Management of Royal Philips Electronics, who has flown in here especially to be with us on this occasion.
Mr Guimaraes, we are deeply honored with your presence this evening and sincerely hope that you will enjoy the rest of your evening with us, in true Malaysian hospitality style.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Philips brand, which you have known for over a century, is Philips most valuable asset and a key driver of growth throughout the years. In fact, the recent Business Week/Interbrand survey, has listed Philips as one of the top 100 global brands. It proves that we must have done some 'very exciting' work to be accorded such a position.
However, the current perception of Philips today is substantially different from the reality of what Philips is. We are not just a technology company or dealing with light-bulbs only. The fact is Philips is a marketing-driven company focusing around three core business pillars, them being Healthcare, Lifestyle and Technology, and we are committed to deliver our new brand promise that is best represented in this new tagline of Sense & Simplicity.
The new brand promise of Sense & Simplicity is the result of months of extensive research involving more than 1,650 consumers and 180 customers around the world. It will set the foundation for Philips to grow its existing healthcare, lifestyle and technology businesses, and to enter into new product categories and markets, such as consumer healthcare technology in future.
We are convinced that no matter how complex and advanced a product or solution is, it should be simple to use and make sense. Technology is there to help us, make our lives easier and more productive. Philips is committed to delivering products and solutions that are designed around you, easy to experience and advanced - the three filters that help us to define Sense & Simplicity.
To mark our commitment to this cause, we have replaced the old motto 'Let's make Things Better' that has served us well for almost a decade. This commitment may be expressed in a new way but it is at the heart of the company's long term vision and mission: to improve the quality of people's lives through the timely introduction of meaningful technological innovations.
The promise of the digital revolution to make our lives easier, simpler and better has not been actually delivered. In fact, in many aspects, it has only made our life more complicated, especially to the older generation who are so used to the familiar, old ways of doing things and not being tech-savvy.
It is very important that we start making products and services that make sense and are easy to use, in order to prepare for future strategic business opportunities with added room and zest to grow.
Delivering on our brand promise of Sense & Simplicity is our way of ensuring that we are able to live up to the Philips mission - that is to improve the quality of people's lives through the timely introduction of meaningful technological innovations. Technology needs to be more intuitive. It must serve a direct need and add value. It has to create an enhanced experience.
We must always ask ourselves whether we are creating things with the end user in mind or are we developing them for technology's sake? To put it bluntly, customers will not buy complicated products or services that are too complex. Our research has shown that they are looking for Sense & Simplicity and that is precisely what we need to give them.
At the same time, sense and simplicity should not come at the expense of quality. Rest assured that we are committed to maintaining the rigorous quality standards that we have always adhered to.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Words alone may not bring Sense & Simplicity in to fruition. It needs the commitment by all our staff to change the way we think, do business and interact with our stakeholders makes this New Promise a reality.
We have made a commitment to change and the brand promise, Sense & Simplicity, is part of this transformation that will enable us to become more marketing-led and also perceived rightly.
We sincerely hope that our Malaysian stakeholders will benefit from this new commitment. You will definitely see dynamic changes from us. That's my promise to all of you!
Ladies & Gentlemen,
After many years of restructuring, we think that we are now ready for the next phase - which is to get back decisively on the road to sustainable growth and to explore and develop new markets. One of the keys to growth is to have a distinctive market position and a distinctive image that the world can relate to.
It is our ambition that in four years' time, the image people will have of Philips will be different from what it is today.
Historically, as mentioned earlier in my speech, for the larger part of the more than one hundred years of our existence, Philips was primarily known as a light bulb manufacturer. Then came the period in which consumer electronics took centre stage in our corporate image together with semiconductors.
And while we continue to move forward into new areas that will set the tone for tomorrow's lifestyle experiences, today, healthcare is becoming more and more the leading category of the future, and so now we change with the times.
Just last month the Board of Management has decided to establish a new business named
Consumer Health & Wellness (CHW)
CHW will be a new business within the Company that will focus on products and services that diagnose, monitor, improve and/or care for the health and wellbeing of consumers. The main challenge of this new organization is to develop a focused CHW strategy for Philips and to build a portfolio of businesses primarily through acquisitions and alliances, aiming to build a business with revenues of Euro 750 million to Euro 1 billion in 3 to 4 years.
Establishing this dedicated organization, focused on Health and Wellness for consumers is driven by our Health & Lifestyle strategy and should accelerate our efforts in this exciting field. Consumer health and wellness, a growing market as population age, and the medical domain moving more and more from the hospital to home - where technologies can help monitor and prevent diseases and facilitate self-care. A good example would be the Philips defibrillator for home use.
To conclude, we are on the way towards a goal we have clearly defined - to become the world's premier company operating in the interlinked fields of Healthcare, Lifestyle with enabling technology. To resume the path of sustainable, profitable growth, this single theme will unite us, as it embraces everything we make and do - Sense and Simplicity.
Thank you for your attention. We would now like to share with you some of the TVCs on products that already support this Brand Positioning.
Thank you.
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