Since the start of BOLD MOVE one year ago, we all belong to OBS System Certification. Together with our colleagues in China, India, America, Asia and many other countries, we now work on an increasingly international basis. Yet which areas does OBS System Certification actually cover and who works where? In order to give you an overview, we would like to introduce some of the specific clusters here in this and forthcoming editions, in our “BOLD MOVE” section. This time around, we are looking at the cluster "Western Europe" with Paul van Enckevort at the helm.
Paul van Enckevort
Paul van Enckevort is relatively new to TÜV NORD: He started in August 2017 as Senior Vice President of the Cluster Western Europe. He is 49 years old and lives in a small village near Venlo, close to the German border. But he is currently building a new house together with good friends and his so called “god children”. In his free time he likes to play golf, read a good book and take city trips around the world.
Mr. van Enckevort, once again welcome to TÜV NORD! Could you describe your previous professional background in a few words?
I did an MSc in Technical Physics at the Technical University of Eindhoven. I specialized in Flow Dynamics. After my studies I did several training courses in the field of management, marketing & sales, project management, SCRUM and innovation management. I used to work during my 21 year career in the TIC market at a Dutch company called NMi, where I focused on worldwide product and system certification for measuring instruments. And now I’m looking forward to new challenges at TÜV NORD.
You are responsible for the Cluster Western Europe now – where are your headquarters and where are the other offices?
Our headquarters are at TÜV Netherlands in Best. But we have offices in the London area (East Croyden) (UK), Antwerp & Namen (Belgium), Lille (France), Madrid & Barcelona (Spain) and Bologna & Milan (Italy). And of course I am very often in Essen (TN Cert headquarters) and occasionally in Hamburg (International Sales & Project management).
How many people work in your cluster?
In total there are about 90 employees, but with the external auditors we have a capacity of about 200 auditors and we issue around 6000 Certificates on a yearly basis with a total turnover of about 14.5 Million Euro. All national work is done by my local staff and PC heads, so I find it very important that I mention them and the core of the Western Europe team here:
- Italy: Mr. Stefano Porelli
- Spain: Mr. Jose Ramon Martinez Caceres
- UK: Mrs. Tanya Kuchukova
- France: Mr. Philippe Bohm
- Belgium: Mr. Guy Buysse
Let’s look at your local activities: What’s your regional footprint and which regions do you service?
The Cluster Western Europe consists of all certifications activities in The Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Spain, France and Italy. The “classic certifications” are selling particularly well, such as ISO 9001, 14001, OHSAS 18001, followed by new standards like 27001, Wood FSC. But several regional/national standards can also be applicable like VCA, Safety Ladder, Asbest and NEN 7510 (Netherlands), Carbon, Esos (UK), Agencia Española Protecion de Datos (Spain). Within Western Europe we are in a very competitive, saturated market where we strongly focus on local small and medium sized companies. Our local knowledge, flexibility and also our knowledge of the different market segments give us big advantages in terms of clients focus and understanding the clients’ business needs.
What are the main challenges for you?
Within Western Europe we have three main challenges and opportunities:
- Keep up with the growing competition in a saturated market in terms of sales (focus and capacity), efficiencies and flexibility
- Growth in the smaller countries (0.5 to 1 Million Euro/year) with support of TN Cert, creating a bigger and more stable market position
- Focus on the upcoming demands in a digitalized world. The Safety4Security projects are thus very important for us, and for example the 27001 and 7510 in combination with European GDPR legislation potentially offer opportunities for strong growth in the coming years.
And the last question: From your point of view – What are the most important changes since the beginning of BOLD MOVE?
In my short time at TÜV I have noticed three issues in particular:
- More focus on and support from TN Cert for the local subsidiaries in terms of attention, product development, sharing information on market demands and developments
- Joint projects for internationally focused clients within an international project approach. This is still a learning process within Bold Move, but we see a growing demand from clients here, where we have to fine-tune the internal organization on expectations and joint cooperation (process and project flow)
- The tendency towards centralized development of new services and innovation which support the local subsidiaries and therefore not depend on sometimes small companies with lack of capacity to further development.
Thank you very much for the interview.