SERVING CUSTOMERS ACROSS THE GLOBE

In the enterprise communications industry, Philips’ traditional power base is the EMEA market, while NEC commands a leading market position in the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas. Together, as NEC Philips Unified Solutions, they are achieving their aim of global coverage.

“NEC Philips Unified Solutions’ long-term objective is to become one of the global industry leaders, with a 15 per cent share of the worldwide enterprise communications market,” asserts Paul Kievit, Chief Commercial Officer and Senior Vice President. “We aim to achieve this by providing innovative, competitive solutions to all sections of the enterprise communications market, from SMB to corporate enterprises. We can offer TDM, hybrid and IP platforms to suit businesses of all sizes, and a rich suite of voice and business applications to make companies more efficient. We can also offer managed services to companies and organisations across the globe. NEC has already entered this market successfully and has service centres in Japan, North America and Australia. NEC Philips will add a further managed-services operational centre in Europe, covering the EMEA market.”

Multinational client base

The joint venture of NEC and Philips brings a great deal of combined knowledge and experience to the table: not only of geographical markets, but in vertical market segments too, such as healthcare, hospitality, government, utilities and education. “As Philips, we’ve been serving these sectors for years and you only have to look at NEC’s references to see that they, too, have an excellent track-record in vertical market segments,” Kievit continues. “Take hospitality, for example, NEC’s client base includes some of the world’s largest hotel chains. In Las Vegas alone, NEC can boast a 52 per cent share of the enterprise communications market amongst hotels with more than 1,000 rooms. And outside hospitality NEC clients include large multinationals across all industries, including some of the world’s largest consumer electronics and car manufacturers.”

NEC Philips Unified Solutions is not just about bringing NEC’s global enterprise communications solutions to Europe; it’s also about bringing European solutions to global customers. “One of our key drivers is to develop centrally, act locally and share totally,” says Kievit. “It means that at NEC Philips we can use our central R&D capabilities to develop a broad base of communications solutions. We can then implement an appropriate solution on a local level for a multinational customer, with the aim of extending that solution to the organisation as a whole, on a global level.”

Global account managers

“This is a good example of the added value we can offer by presenting one face, one process and one solution to the customer,” says Kievit. “By appointing global account managers for our multinational customers we are better placed to serve them across the globe. We have already provided customers with a single communications network for their worldwide operations, incorporating IP telephony and call-handling applications such as contact centres and mobility solutions.”

“Our extended portfolio of products and services is another good example of how we can add value for companies,” Kievit concludes. “Global customers realise that where consistent communications solutions are deployed across the organisation — especially across geographic borders — they can reduce their total costs of ownership and create efficiencies. The NEC Philips joint venture allows us to present a globally consistent offering in terms of infrastructure, applications and services. This offering has been designed to help our global customers in the transition from existing technology, acquire new, innovative NEC Philips solutions, and manage that transition as a path of evolution.”