Cluster Manager Meeting

The nine OBS System Certification cluster managers met in Essen at the end of May for the second Cluster Manager Meeting since the official launch of BOLD MOVE. In addition to a presentation on the positive results of the company-wide growth so far, the meeting focused on sharing and planning further steps towards international cooperation and future success.

Wolfgang Wielpütz opened the event with words of praise for OBS System Certification. He highlighted the substantial cooperation between the clusters and the benefits for all members. Then he presented an overview of the current status of the OBS SC, financial data, structural changes and the future strategy: “In 2018 we have to work on the four main measures: sales, new products, new market entries and training. Additionally we have to start to implement SmartTIC and accelerate our activities in M&A. From a global point of view, our most promising services are the certification of information security management systems, of Social Standards and training and personnel certification”. After that each of the participants reported on the current situation, successes, opportunities, and risks within their cluster and gave a comprehensive account of their work. The day ended with a dinner and a darts-contest.

On the second day, the members met in the InnovationSpace in Essen for a one-day session on innovative thinking in the context of business model innovation. "One of the biggest obstacles to innovation is to be caught in routines and day-to-day business. In our session, we created a scope for discussion, critical reflection, and innovative thinking on our established business model in the certification business. In a step-by-step approach, we have challenged our own positioning and adopted a new context by asking ourselves how companies from different industries would conduct our business" explained Dr. Carsten Gelhard (Corporate Center Innovation), who moderated the event.

The last day consisted of lectures of the Product and Decision Groups. Christiane Steinkämper, responsible for Innovation Management from department International Sales & Marketing, Germany, presented the innovation process in accordance to the company rules K-RL-200. You will find further information on the innovation or product development process in a subsequent article of this newsletter.

Kim-Julia Zamljen, Business Development Manager, subsequently reported on the status quo in international customer satisfaction. Based on external and internal audit results, it has become obvious that the TÜV NORD subsidiaries measure and analyse customer satisfaction in different ways - even though TÜV NORD CERT’s procedure for dealing with customer satisfaction is clearly laid out in a document. CERT-AA-027 describes the procedure within companies and explains that the measurement of customer satisfaction applies for TÜV NORD CERT and all subsidiaries, when delivering products owned by TÜV NORD CERT. The customer satisfaction is assessed using a questionnaire, an evaluation tool and a balanced scorecard tool. On TÜV NORD GROUP level, a working group was established, due to the fact that Customer Satisfaction becomes more and more important within the GROUP (TÜV NORD GROUP guidelines - our values). Therefore the corporate quality management representative Mr. Mathias Brändle initiated a working group which defines fields of improvement for measuring the customer satisfaction.

Lectures followed on the topics IT-related Certification Services of the OBS (Springer / Hoffmann), Marketing & Sales (Dr. Dreier / Reddy), Training (Kulkarni / Roßberg), Sustainability (Choudhury / Winter), Social Standards (Saalmann) and Remote Audits (Dr. Oberste Lehn).

All the participants were very satisfied at the end of the event: "The three-day meeting of the cluster heads offered an excellent opportunity to strengthen the network and synchronize our strategic objectives and procedures within OBS system certification" summarized Dr. Gerhard Dreier, head of international sales & marketing in OBS SC.