Philips announces new structure of Consumer Electronics division
Royal Philips Electronics today announced a new structure for itslargest division, Consumer Electronics. The division will be organizedinto five transparent businesses, each responsible for their ownoperations. The new organization will allow the businesses to reactmore quickly to their distinct market conditions and will allow formore flexibility in the structure.
The Consumer Electronics division includes a number of activitieswhich are evolving with different business characteristics: our CEportfolio embraces both mass market and professional distributionneeds. Some activities have small-scale production units, others aremass manufacturers. Also, Internet is changing the shape of many ofour business models.
The following groups have been defined:
Mainstream CE, the audio and video activities will be consolidatedinto one organization, focussed on mass marketing and mass productionof televisions, audio and video equipment and monitors. This group hasample growth opportunities among others in the CD-recorder and DVDproduct lines and in intelligent TV sets, interfacing to the Internet.Guy Demuynck will be in charge of this group.
Philips Consumer Communications will remain to be led by ThomSwartsenburg. PCC operates in a very fast growing competitive market,with a high rate of innovation requiring a nimble fast movingorganization.
Digital Networks, Philips' set-top box business, will be a separateorganization. This group is one of the divisional growth engines, withthe potential to grow faster than the traditional mainstreamactivities. This group, led by Rob van Oostenbrugge, will invest innew technologies related to the Internet infrastructure and servicesbusinesses.
PCB Assembly will be an independent activity under the management ofMichel Charriau. The purchasing of electronic components will therebyremain centralized, based on the advantages of standardization andeconomies of scale.
A Special Products group has been set up, which will report to TomVerbeek. This group is comprised of smaller scale businesses that sellmainly via distributors or custom installers and not via large retailchains. Some of these activities also need flexibility with respect toalliances.
All five groups have one management team responsible for theirrevenue, profit-and-loss and the execution of their strategic goals.The groups all report into Adri Baan, Executive Vice President of theBoard of Management of Royal Philips Electronics and Chairman & CEO ofPhilips Consumer Electronics. Mr Baan will be responsible for thenecessary coordination between the businesses.