Jeroen Tas on the importance of long-term relationships

Strategic vision, partnerships, co-creation, stakeholder involvement and long-term relationships are the clear threads that run through the answers given by Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer Jeroen Tas during an interview with Dutch business magazine Management Scope about Philips’ shift from a transaction-based business model to a relationship-based one.

Questioned about whether Philips approaches innovation differently today compared to the past, Jeroen highlights that Philips used to deal with standalone products, whereas now it has a strategic vision to provide integrated and connected platform solutions that enable healthcare providers to make the right decisions at the right time for their patients. As examples, he cites Philips’ intensive care unit (ICU) remote patient-monitoring solutions, which help to identify patient deteriorations before they become life-threatening, and its cooperation with the Dutch Rijnstate Hospital to deploy monitoring and connected health technologies to expand the delivery of care from the hospital to regional care networks, including patients’ homes.

According to Jeroen, partnerships like the one with Rijnstate Hospital are now the norm in Philips’ R&D programs. “We don’t invest in anything unless there is clear co-creation with the customer and a clear value model,” he says. “Nor do we make any investment if we don’t know how a customer can fit our idea into his business operations, or if it is not clear how that customer can finance our technology concepts.”

For Philips, that means co-creating solutions and fostering long-term relationships that continuously build on success. For example, Philips’ Azurion platform is a fully integrated interventional lab solution for minimally-invasive interventional procedures, but after selling it to a hospital Philips continues to collaborate with the hospital, continuously analyzing the data to see how procedures can be further improved.

The interview also explores Jeroen’s views on the need for industry alliances to solve the world’s pressing healthcare problems. “There is no longer a single care path in which only one supplier is involved. That is why we participate in various alliances, sometimes as an orchestrator, sometimes as a participant. The medical world has become too complex to simply compete with direct competitors in terms of price. Sometimes it is more sensible to work together, which ensures better outcomes for both the patient and the hospital or care institution. You can still create enough room for yourself to continue to innovate and create your own unique proposition.”

To read the full interview click here.