With more than six thousand products in its catalog, a turnover of five billion euro and approximately 50,000 employees, Philips Lighting is a worldwide market leader in lighting products. In the Luminaires business unit everything centers around professional lighting. Aside from lamps and fittings, you’ll find widely differing applications here, ranging from project lighting to lampposts and “city beautification” concepts that include decorative lighting for streets, squares, skylines and buildings.

"Atos Origin not only carried out this agreement to the letter, but also its intended spirit. Once the serious negotiations were completed, there were no ifs and buts, and people worked hard and focused on results. Because of the significant savings, we are considering to expand the use of this form of outsourcing."

Henry van de Ven, CIO/Business Excellence Manager, Philips Lighting Luminaires

Business Challenges

In the spring of 2003, Philips Lighting Luminaires announced its intention to reduce the cost of maintaining and operating its pan-European SAP system–without sacrificing its quality and availability.

Within two months a steering committee and a project team were identified and ready to go. The project goal of relocating the major share of the functional management, authorization policy, interfaces and programming for the SAP system to the development factories and management facilities in India within a very short time period was accomplished. A segment of the work has remained close to home using a well-fitted front-office/back-office. This eliminated the need for changing work methods and ensured that all existing service levels were met, even without decreasing response times.

The results were encouraging from the very start. “Significant percentage savings and furthermore, a three percent increase in perceived service levels. This is why we are also considering to apply Smart Sourcing to other business units, for example, the technical management of hardware,” according to Henry van de Ven, CIO/Business Excellence Manager, Philips Lighting Luminaires.

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