Last week it unveiled future appliances incorporating unique technology that will improve the quality of life as well as boost the company's bottom line.

Last week's event in Hong Kong showcased new designs demonstrating the company's "simplicity" credo.

These unique Philips "lifestyle" products will be in homes in three to five years.

They include "motivational" body-measurement tools linked to an information display.

These allow people to better understand their physical condition - weight, body fat, hydration and shape.

One machine records personal histories and tailors advice. Others can purify the body using an ultra-violet light. It can dispense minerals, too.

There is an integrated skin-care tool that uses red and blue light in a natural way to revitalise facial skin. Add to that a three-in-one lamp that delivers normal light, red light and infra-red light for various preventive treatments - based on a built-in skin-analysis sensor - for any part of the body.

The company will offer a wall-mounted "artificial sun" using natural-light rhythms to give energy boosts and help control the body clock.

Philips consumer-electronics chief executive Rudy Provoost said the "company started as a lighting business 115 years ago and in that sense, lighting is part of our DNA".

"We are capitalising on lighting in two major activities. First as a business [selling finished lighting products] and, second, using lighting as an ingredient for lifestyle solutions such as ambient televisions, games and heart-of-application systems," Provoost said.

He said that for the old Philips, lighting was a way to see things better; for the new Philips, lighting is a "mood-enhancer" and adds to the quality of life.

Provoost said the company's promise of "sense and simplicity" ensured it delivered what customers were looking for in functional and design products.

The company is "consumer-centric" and has merged sense, technology and products.

"With sense and simplicity we are focusing on how we can understand consumers and develop products that can be successful in the market. We engage in activities and personal contact to make new products based not only on engineering but on humanity or how people think," Provoost said.

He added the simplicity promise would make the company stand out from others more concerned with features and add-ons.

"It will make a substantial difference if we start our product development from a customer's point of view," Provoost said.

It normally takes six months to three years to realise a product from concept to manufacture. The company spends 50 per cent of revenue on product design.

According to Interbrand, Philips increased the value of its brand from US$4 billion (Bt140 billion) in 2004 to $6.7 billion last year. The company is now the 48th most recognisable brand in the world, up from 65th in 2004 based on better financial performance and brand strength.

Philips chief marketing officer and chief executive for its domestic-appliance and personal-care division Andrea Ragnetti said the simplicity event demonstrated samples of products and signalled the company's commitment to simplicity.

Some of these products will be available soon and were designed from inspiration received at a simplicity event in Paris in 2005.

"Almost 500 employees as well as 100 customers are coming from all over Asia to our second simplicity event, this time in Hong Kong. They will give valuable feedback to our staff for further product development," Ragnetti said.

The events are set to transform Philips into "a brand-based customer-centric organisation".

"Simplicity is our brand promise in bringing humanity to technology. This commitment is throughout the organisation and all functions at Philips," Ragnetti said.

Philips commitment is to adopt technologies that improve people's lives.

Sense and simplicity will be in everything Philips does, including sales and the way it "engages its customers".

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation

HONG KONG