Frans van Houten

Growing and aging populations are putting increased pressure on health-care systems that are already buckling under the burden of chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes. ”

First and foremost, we must take a more holistic view of patient care journeys and then better integrate workflows and technology so that the care experience is seamless and provided at the location where it makes most sense. ”

Health care has to be delivered as an integrated service across the entire continuum of care. This runs from healthy living and prevention to diagnosis and treatment and recovery and homecare. ”

Indeed, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will greatly lead to increased consumer health awareness and self-management and will enable individualized treatment pathways supported by tele-health care and coaching. ”

Healthcare continues to move outside the hospital and into our homes and everyday lives. With leading doctors and psychologists, for example, we've developed personal health programs designed around patients to catalyze sustainable behavioural change. ”

Great companies need to reinvent themselves. We can do that: we can stay relevant, we can grow, and we can stay successful. It takes courage, but it's a path we've been preparing for carefully. ”

At the core, Philips is an innovation company. And for innovation to work, you need to look for the unmet needs. ”

Even though we live in a fast-changing world with short term-ism all around, it requires years of determination to transform a company and structurally reap the rewards. Innovation companies need to set their sights on solving unmet needs - but this approach requires focus and long-term tenacity. ”

We undertook a huge internal transformation to sharpen our customer focus, step up innovation, improve productivity to ensure competitiveness, change our culture, and simplify our ways of working so that our size and scale became a competitive advantage rather than a bureaucratic hangover after years of diversification. ”

I came back to Philips and quickly realised that the TV business had a major performance issue and some structural challenges. Rather than try to tweak it and sit things out, we said we had to go for a structural solution. ”