When Pieter Nota joined Philips, four years ago, to run the Dutch technology group’s Consumer Lifestyle sector, he found a business in poor shape. The market shares of several important products were falling in the wake of harsh trading conditions and a lack of earlier investment. Sales of the company’s televisions were declining alarmingly following a brief spike ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. More fundamentally, an overcentralized and functionally led organizational structure was proving ill suited to the task of managing the two formerly separate companies (small domestic appliances and consumer electronics) first brought together under the Consumer Lifestyle umbrella, in 2008.
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