RTM: Perhaps you could start by telling us what the old structure looked like.

RF: Each country had a lot of independence.  The general managers in our national subsidiaries were free to develop their own sales and marketing strategies.  Each country had its own warehouse and its own ERP system.

Canon Europe did exist, but essentially it carried out back-office functions such as accounting, and liaised with Japan on product management.  I was a marketing general manager for Germany and I guess I visited Europe once or twice a month.  Although I was told when and how to introduce products, not much was tightly controlled and directives were rather flexible.

“You have to warn people not to expect too much too fast.”

RTM: Why make the change?

RF: We could see that the market was changing.  A couple of large accounts approached us and asked for European coordination.  Since our national subsidiaries had so much independence, this wasn’t really possible.  We also found that marketing messages were inconsistent across Europe.  And there was a lot of duplication, with everyone planning his or her own channel strategies.

RTM: And what have you moved to today?

RF: Well, we established CCI Europe here in Amsterdam.  This consists not just of product managers but also of a marketing team and a business operations team. Marketing looks after marketing communications, marketing strategy, market research and also new media strategies.

Business Operations plans channel strategy and key customer strategy and it carries out sales coordination with the countries.  We have also started some pan-European sales teams.  At the moment that is limited to the sales of consumables.

The number of warehouses has been consolidated to one central warehouse in the Netherlands, five regional ones in Germany, the UK, Sweden and Italy and in France, and two satellites in Spain and Switzerland.  We have moved to a single European ERP system.

RTM: So what goes on at a national level today?

RF: Previously you would have a troika of managers in each CCI subsidiary, each responsible for a different function, such as sales or marketing, and all reporting to the national president.  Now we have a single manager who is responsible for everything and who reports both to the national President and also into CCI Europe.  In each country we have a European coordinator who is responsible for liaising between the country and Europe.  He or she reports both to the national general manager and into the European teams.