We conclude our interview with Franck Racapé, Head of Global Commercial & Vice President EMEA of Philips PPDS, who took stock with us of the rebranding strategy of the Philips display area and offered other interesting insights into the current state of the industry.
C – How did this strategy impact the performance of the business in 2021?
FR – 2021 was undoubtedly a challenging year for us, our partners, their customers, and the global market as a whole. However, one of my favorite quotes is from Sun Tzu, who famously said that “in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” That’s how I would describe 2020 and 2021. While some opted to shelter themselves and wait for the storm to clear, we, as a business, took some very bold decisions to meet the challenges head-on, with our full team of people all continually employed. The impact of those decisions resulted in us achieving one of our most successful years to date.
C – How so?
FR – During 2021, we saw significant rises in our professional TV business, which may surprise many given the hospitality industry was one of the hardest hit as a result of the pandemic. In this period PPDS achieved market leadership in a number of regions, including the Nordics, Benelux and DACH, for our Chromecast built-in Philips MediaSuite professional TVs. We also saw some impressive growth in our Digital Signage and LED businesses, with Spain and Italy experiencing record rises. This wasn’t through luck. This was a direct result of our decision to embrace challenges, not only to support our own business, but as a part of our commitment to supporting our partners and, by extension, their customers.
C – What were some of these ‘bold‘ decisions you took?
FR – Back in March 2020, there was no contingency plan in place for how to successfully manage the business during a global pandemic. Whatever we decided, we had to get right, not only for the sake of our own business but for our partners, too. So, we had to react fast, bring our global teams and their expertise together, and write and introduce new policies and methods. During the height of the pandemic, as a business, we took the decision to ensure we were supporting the market as much as we could. We’re proud that we retained all members of staff throughout, with no cuts, no reduction in hours or furlough schemes. In fact, we expanded our team, filling gaps we felt needed reinforcing – including the creation and expansion of our new IKAM team.
We also, from the moment the first lockdowns arrived, created new partnership programs to support our partners and their customers, helping to ensure projects were able to continue and to reduce some of the financial burdens. We did this, in part, by redirected our budgets reserved for events like ISE. For many industries, notably hospitality, the pandemic meant complete shutdowns. We saw opportunities to ensure that we and our partners were able to remain active. This meant our partners could continue, while hotels, for example, were able to upgrade and futureproof their premises ready to welcome back guests. We all needed to come together and work our way through this. The results we have seen all are a credit to our teams and to our partners.
C – Could you tell us more about the IKAM team?
FR – The creation of our IKAM team (International Key Account Management) was part of our approach to offering global consistency with local expertise. This approach provides a single point of contact for global brands and enterprises to ensure fast, tailored, reliable, and fully optimized solutions with direct support at all times. Crucially, for organizations with multiple national or international locations, whether offices or retail stores, we’re able to ensure a seamless and consistent approach, providing complete support from pre- to post-sales, encompassing strategy, pricing, contracting, operations, and services. We understand the pains and frustrations that can accompany installation projects, and with IKAM, we’re streamlining everything, so our partners and their customers can focus on what you do best, while our team take care of the finer details. It’s been a tremendous success in 2021 and we’ll continue to evolve and enhance this approach this year and in years to come.
C – What verticals will you be most focused on in 2022?
FR – Our general business approach will continue, with interactive touch screens, direct view LED displays, digital signage and professional TVs supporting all core verticals (hospitality, retail, corporate, education, healthcare) all remaining key products and focus areas. As a business, we’ve always prided ourselves on being able to react quickly to changing market needs, whatever they happen to be. One of the biggest differences for us compared with some in the market, is that we have products and teams dedicated to each of the verticals I have mentioned. We don’t believe in a one size fits all approach and our displays, whether digital signage, professional TVs, our interactive displays have been designed and built with the vertical in mind, equipped with the right hardware and software. To achieve that, we leverage our own expertise as well as feedback from our customers and leading providers in the field. We don’t simply build a display, load on some software and call it, for example, an education display. That’s not how PPDS does business and that will never change.
C – How have the global component shortages impacted PPDS?
FR – It’s been a challenging period and there’s no denying the entire industry has been impacted, some, sadly, more than others. Collectively we have all been hit by six key shortages. These include a lack of panels, lack of IC, lack of containers, lack of wharf, lack of electricity, and lack of manpower. For us, with our own factories as a part of TPV, though, we have been able to weather the storm more effectively than most, and we were still able to fulfil the majority of orders and demand thanks to a combination of our manufacturing scale and forward planning. With all our teams continuing to work as normal throughout the pandemic, delays around new products have not been impacted and all the new products and solutions for 2022, and even those being developed for 2023, are on track to be unveiled and launched within the timescales we have always planned.
We don’t know what will happen in the future but we have a duty and a responsibility to be ready. At PPDS, we have shown that we have the scale, the organization, the people and the experience to support the needs and demands from the market. The pandemic was an opportunity to test our own resolve and we’re satisfied we’ve taken the right approach and, in turn, we feel closer than ever to our customers as a result.
C – What are your plans for ISE 2022?
FR: ISE 2022 remains one of our biggest events of the year in Europe. With the postponement, it does mean that some of our new solutions have now been announced away from the show, such as our updated range of Philips MediaSuite models. These will go on display for the first time at the show in Barcelona. But we still have plenty of key announcements to make, with solutions for education, corporate and hospitality among many, some big news around our direct view LED display portfolio and some exciting Cloud platform news.
C – Finally, what can we expect from PPDS throughout 2022?
FR – 2022 has already become an historic year for the company, proudly becoming a Team Supplier for Red Bull Racing (RBR) Formula One team, announced in February. This includes providing displays for their world class VIP trackside hospitality services to guests, including LED technology, especially designed for the fast-paced, always on-the-move world of F1. As with our total solutions strategy, working with companies that are driven by performance, is positively challenging and we keep on pushing our limits, which our partners will also benefit from.
Overall, 2022 will be another busy year in the market for PPDS, with the results of our teams’ work, market insights and continued feedback forming and then evolving our product roadmaps. We will continue to support all key verticals with dedicated displays – as opposed to a one display fits all approach – we are always mindful of changing needs and requirements, and indeed unique challenges faced by every industry. Hybrid working and learning will continue to be a major area of focus and development, with interactive displays, and the ability to collaborate an important area for us. We will also continue to evolve our products and our product offerings via strategic partners, to complement our displays. We want to continue to break the silos between hardware and software provision to ensure all major verticals are supported and can have complete, fully provisioned, and highly innovative solutions when doing business with PPDS. This allows our customers to be truly creative with the solutions they add to our displays.
