Philips 2007 Annual Report Download - page 13

The Philips Way
Insights and empowerment
Our mission is to improve the quality of people’s lives
through the timely introduction of meaningful innovations.
In a world where complexity grows to touch every
aspect of our daily lives, we will lead in bringing sense
and simplicity to people.
Based on a deep understanding of what people really
need and want, and delivering on our promise of
simplicity, we empower our customers – both healthcare
and lighting professionals and end-consumers – with
solutions that are advanced, yet designed around them
and easy to experience. Specically, we address these
needs and desires in the four domains of my space,
my body, my appearance and my mind.
As well as expressing a commitment to eliminate
unnecessary complexity and to deliver the meaningful
benets of technology, our “sense and simplicity” brand
promise also denes how we want to be seen by all our
stakeholders – open and transparent, approachable, easy
to do business with.
Today, Philips is a much simpler company focused on
the market, centered around the brand and driven by
innovation. We see tremendous potential in both mature
and emerging markets and leverage our competencies in
design, technology and marketing to capture value from
some of the major economic, social and demographic
trends, e.g. the growing demand for better healthcare
at lower cost, consumer empowerment, the rise of
emerging markets and the need for energy efciency.
Our company was founded in Eindhoven (Netherlands)
in 1891 to “manufacture incandescent lamps and other
electrical products”. Ever since then, we have been
simplifying and enhancing people’s lives with a steady
ow of pioneering innovations, for instance in the elds
of medical imaging, television, lighting, optical technology
and integrated circuits. Today, we remain committed to
building upon this rich heritage to make people’s lives
simpler, more enjoyable and more productive.
Vision 2010
In 2001 we started out on a journey to transform Philips
into a focused, market-driven company capable of
delivering sustained protable growth, and so creating
value for our stakeholders. Over the course of the
intervening years, we have fundamentally repositioned
Philips from a rather volatile, technology-focused,
vertically integrated electronics company to an
applications-oriented, customer-centric and more
predictable company. This involved a massive capital
re-allocation, away from cyclical technology businesses
and toward expansion of our high-margin core
businesses through acquisitions, innovation and brand
injections, as well as returning capital to shareholders
through tax-efcient share buy-backs and dividends.
In 2007 we took another major step forward with
the announcement of our Vision 2010 strategic blueprint.
Vision 2010 places the customer at the very heart
of everything we do. Accordingly, we have realigned our
entire organization around the needs we see in the
marketplace. Effective January 1, 2008, we now have three
sectors – Healthcare, Lighting and Consumer Lifestyle.
8 Financial highlights 10 Message from the President 16 The Philips Group
The Philips Way
62 The Philips sectors
Philips Annual Report 200716