How integrated should a Product-as-a-Service proposition be in the core business? If an existing company starts a new as-a-service business, this question needs to be answered.
In this episode, Rob Keulemans, Chief Commercial Officer at Royal Ahrend, describes the organisational journey of their Furniture-as-a-Service proposition. After a separate start, significant elements of FaaS are now part of core processes and systems.
This episode is the 13th in the series PaaS Decoded, 16 conversations about the fine details of product-as-a-service.
Video Impression:
People:
Rob Keulemans, Chief Commercial Officer, Royal Ahrend
Patrick Hypscher, Co-Founder of Green PO, Expert in Sustainable Business Models
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:57 The level of integration of Furniture as a Service
03:17 FaaS Sales done by normal Sales Team
08:53 Avoiding Cannibalizing Incentives
09:56 Financing via a Special Purpose Vehicle
10:51 Offering the full product range – designed for Circularity
15:22 Refurbishment Operations as new field for and beyond FaaS
16:24 FaaS using existing Logistics Processes
17:03 Introducing a Circular ERP System for the whole company
20:42 RDID Tags and QR Codes as identifier
22:53 Gradual integration of processes
23:57 Strategic Decision to seize the opportunity of lasting furniture
27:23 More flexible service adjustments as the next challenge to solve
29:32 The need for a lasting product designed for disassembly
30:21 Professionalisation of the Refurbishment Industry
About Royal Ahrend, from website:
Ahrend is an international leading expert in the field of professional work environments. For almost 125 years, Ahrend designs and creates inspiring, innovative and healthy working environments. Ahrend specializes in Activity Based Working concepts, where well-being and productivity of the user are the central points of focus.
Further Links:
https://www.ahrend.com/en/solutions/furniture-as-a-service/
Transcript:
Rob Keulemans: We started it as a startup. And what we try to do is to pick and choose more and more processes from the existing organization where they can add value. And then we get used to it from both sides. And now we are trying to integrate more and more.
Jingle: My name is Patrick Hypscher and this is Circularity FM, the podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models.
Patrick Hypscher: He has a degree in automotive engineering and has worked for more than 10 years in marketing functions at Leaseplan. As managing director, he started and scales the Leaseplan Bank. Seven years ago, in 2017, he joined ahrend. For almost 125 years, ahrend designs and creates inspiring and healthy working environments.
At ahrend, he started the Furniture as a Service proposition. After developing ahrend’s digital, e business and sustainability efforts, he was appointed chief commercial officer in April this year. Welcome, Rob.
Rob Keulemans: Thank you. What an introduction.
Patrick Hypscher: Rob, what’s the favorite piece of furniture in your office?
Rob Keulemans: That’s our newly designed task chair, I would say. It’s called the ahrend Remote. It’s the most sustainable task chair there is. So that is, that’s the one. And we have it in pink. So we also have it in a special color instead of the boring black. So that’s a really nice one. You should buy one.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Should I buy one or should I rent one?
Rob Keulemans: As a consumer or as a business, that makes a difference.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah.
Rob Keulemans: If you have a business, I would say, well, make make a subscription to it.
[00:01:57] The level of integration of Furniture as a Service
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Nice. I want to talk about that one and especially about the, so the leading question for today will be the, the level of integration of the subscription business. Overall, before we dive into details, would you say your furniture as a service is rather an integrated business? Or is it more separate to your core business, selling?
Rob Keulemans: That’s a good question. Well, when we started, I started Furniture as a Service in 2017 indeed, and when we started this, we looked into it as a startup so as a startup it’s a separate entity within the group.
And what we did is in the beginning we decided to leave as many processes as how they are.
So how it works is that our traditional salespeople or our existing salespeople do not sell our products to a end user, but sell the products to that separate entity. And that separate entity is called Circular Interiors. So Circular Interiors is a customer of the sales team in within the ahrend group. And so they sell it to Circular interiors and Circularircly interiors start invoicing the monthly fees. And the beauty of that is that you don’t have to change so many processes inside. You have to train salespeople obviously but all the administration is done within the SPV.
[00:03:17] FaaS Sales done by normal Sales Team
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Let’s stick to that market side and look at the customer. How do customers normally get in contact with your furniture as a service offering?
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, we obviously we advertise a lot. We train our salespeople a lot. And to be honest, I think that’s also the hardest part of this, because it is very different from what we typically sell. We exist for 130 years, as you know. So this is something very new and very different. So I think it’s, it’s the advertising, it’s the training.
But then again what’s also important to note is that we do not sell it as a financing solution or something. I think many people get how do you say it, um, put on the wrong foot. If you think about furniture as service, that it is some kind of a financial product, which in a bit, it also is, but we try to sell it as a circular product because we very much believe we as ahrend, we said, we are the manufacturer of office furniture. We believe that we are the best to refurbish our own designs of furniture because we design it with disassembly already in mind. And we believe that we are the best party in the world to refurbish our own furniture. So it’s much more a circular model instead of a financing solution.
So it’s not about the funding element of it. It’s very much about our circular solution. And I think that is really gaining traction. But then again if you sell furniture to a existing customer, you most likely talk to the facility manager. If you’re now starting talking about furniture as a service, which is off balance on the customer’s side. Yeah. You also entered the financial sector within our customers so that the DMU is different. So that makes
every now and then a little bit difficult.
Patrick Hypscher: DMU?
Rob Keulemans: The decision making unit, sorry.
Patrick Hypscher: Ah, okay. Mm hmm.
Rob Keulemans: So many times finance is also involved on the customer side, which makes sense, but those are longer processes to sell it every now and then.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. And let’s stick to sales. You mentioned this is one of the biggest challenges. Do you have a dedicated Furniture as a Service sales team, or are all sales reps covering that?
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, we we assessed all the various options. So at the beginning we thought we should have a dedicated salespeople who’s the specialist in furniture as a service. But then again, knowing that our market is changing so rapidly because today we also have to inform our clients about CO2 emissions of products, about Circularity in our products, and then also you have to explain a lot more about furniture and service. And as you know, all the offices in the world are changing in much more hybrid working community. So if you are in sales within our company, you have to learn a lot and you have to know a lot, so it’s difficult. So if you don’t, so if you would go for the model that you have a specialist in place for furniture surface, then you would also need a specialist for hybrid working.
And then you also need a specialist for all kinds of other things. So we try, so that’s why we decided we do not appoint the specialists for this. So we ask our traditional salespeople to sell it. But if there are certain very specific questions, we have a business manager furniture as a service in place who can answer all those difficult questions. So I would say the, the beginning of the sales cycle starts with our normal salespeople. If it gets complicated, well, we have our expertise here in the in my team.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. You mentioned this is in particular, challenging, a challenging aspect. What makes it so challenging? It sounds so easy.
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, because you, if you shift from a sales to a furniture as a service models, what typically customers do is that they multiply the monthly installment times the term. And then they say, well, if I buy it, I pay, let’s say a thousand euros. And now if I have the furniture as a service, I pay maybe also a thousand euros or a little bit less or a little bit more. And then they start questioning, so why should I do it? And then you first have to explain what’s the total cost of ownership of furniture in your existing sales model.
Patrick Hypscher: Mm hmm.
Rob Keulemans: And what’s the total cost of ownership if you use furniture as service? And then the question is, do all the companies that we sell our products to have a clear understanding of their internal cost of capital? Because obviously we have to finance it. So before you can make a comparison, whether Furniture as a Service, apart from all the from all the environmental benefits of using Furniture as a Service, if you want to understand if it is also financially, an attractive product, you first have to understand your total cost of ownership of your furniture today. And that is for many companies still a little bit of struggle because what they typically do is that they have an accounting manual in place. And then if they have a Capex decision, they say, well, it’s furniture. We depreciate that in seven years. So our The yearly cost for furniture is the investment divided by seven years. And then that’s the number they compare with furniture as a service, not knowing that we maintain all the products in the seven years. Uh, that it’s very flexible, that you can return it if you don’t use it anymore. The calculation is every now and then a little bit complicated, and that is something that is for salespeople complicated.
Patrick Hypscher: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Keulemans: Which makes sense, because it is also complicated.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Indeed.
[00:08:53] Avoiding Cannibalizing Incentives
Patrick Hypscher: And if we stick to the salespeople for one more question there is, there is a traditional tension when it comes to the incentives for the linear sales, the one time sales and, and then the subscriptions.
Do you have separate goals, separate targets? And in what way do they cannibalize each other?
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, that’s what we done have done a little bit differently, because they sell it to our special purpose vehicle. Circular interiors, that’s a legal entity. So they still have their traditional sales incentives because they sell products today. So for them, it doesn’t matter if they sell it in a linear model or in a furniture as a service model.
So that’s on the one hand. On the other hand, we also incentivize people who sell a lot of furniture as a service on top of that. So. It doesn’t really matter for them if they sell it to Circular interiors, which is an entity within the group, or they sell it directly to the end user. That doesn’t really make a difference.
And then on top of that, we also incentivize if they have a large share of FAAS at the end of the year.
[00:09:56] Financing via a Special Purpose Vehicle
Patrick Hypscher: Let’s follow that flow. So I then also assume that Circular Interiors is the legal entity that has the contract with your customer, right?
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, exactly.
Patrick Hypscher: And then the next elephant in the room is financing the assets. I mean, one step is already the special purpose vehicle. How did you solve that
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, that’s indeed that’s indeed an elephant in the room. I used to work in the car leasing industry, as you know. And within the car leasing industry, well, many car manufacturers are a bank themselves. So they can fund themselves via capital markets. And the scale of that is obviously much, much, much bigger than what we do, but it’s not a separate category. It’s not a separate asset class where you can securitize some of our assets. So that’s what we are constantly looking into. For now, we funded ourselves via a bank line.
[00:10:51] Offering the full product range – designed for Circularity
Patrick Hypscher: at the beginning, you highlighted that you as a manufacturer are yeah, actually the best to offer that service because you’re in control of the product and the product design.
Can your customers select from the whole range of the products
Rob Keulemans: Yeah. And the reason for saying that at the beginning is because if you lease a car as an example, if you lease a car and you want to come up with a monthly installment, you first of all make an estimate of an estimation of the residual value after four years, and then you know what you have to depreciate, and then you add some interest and some maintenance and repair and some taxes, and then you have a monthly installment. In our world, it’s very different because we do not look at furniture with a residual value because we very much believe that during the term of the contract we have to provision for the cost of refurbishing.
Patrick Hypscher: Mhm.
Rob Keulemans: So what we do every month is that we set part of the monthly installment aside. And once the contract is terminated or at the end of the contract we have a provision that we use to refurbish the products and that we can then prep them to go into the second cycle. So it’s not so much about the resale value of assets where a typical lease would would very much focus on, but on our end, it’s much more about what do you need after five years to refurbish this one, to sell it again as a new product.
Patrick Hypscher: Huh.
Rob Keulemans: That’s also why if you have an investment for a task chair of let’s say a thousand euros and you have an investment of a sofa of a thousand euros, the monthly installment is very different. And that’s because the maintenance or the refurbishment that you need to do at the end of the contract for a sofa is much more expensive than refurbishing, for instance, a task chair, where you only have to replace the seat, the fabric of the seat, for instance. So the monthly installment is very specific to the asset class of the, of the furniture that we provide.
It’s not so much about the resale value. It’s about what we set aside every month in order to be able to refurbish those items at a later stage.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. And every circular enthusiast, listen carefully now is again, enthusiastic because then this is what creates the incentive for you or the product designers to design the furniture that they’re easy to maintain and repair.
Rob Keulemans: Exactly, exactly that. And I also very much believe that if you from an environmental or circular point of view, it also makes perfect sense because you are the manufacturer. So if we start designing products that can be easily refurbished later on that also brings value to us. So if we have the incentive ourselves to design better and easier to refurbish products then the, the cost of ownership also on the client side will go down and that’s exactly what we try to achieve. And that’s exactly why we want to grow this business any further.
Patrick Hypscher: If you look back, when did this Incentive kick in in the, in the product teams, in the product design teams.
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, that’s that’s also a very relevant question. But I have to say is by now not coincidence, but the beauty of Royal ahrend is that we exist for 120 years and already 30 years ago, or 20 or 30 years ago we started the Cradle to Cradle certification process, and the Cradle to Cradle certification process is very much about design for disassembly. And we already had, well, 20, 30 years ago, we were already working on on, on, on a circular design where for instance, we do not do not glue our fabrics to the seats, but we clip it every now and then so that you can replace it easily. So when I started in 2017, the design for this assembly was pretty much there already.
It can always be better, but it was pretty much there already. Because if you look at eBay, for instance, and you look at ahrend furniture items, you can see that there are products from 20 or 30 years old, that are still in operation. That’s what we are proud of, and that’s also why we very much believe, and that’s I think also true, that especially our products are the ones that are very much open to these kind of furniture as a service models. Because refurbishing, that’s really, That’s, that’s, that’s the trick. That’s the name of the game, I would say. And that’s what we are very, very capable.
Patrick Hypscher: Has this refurbishment operation already existed before you started furniture as a service
[00:15:22] Refurbishment Operations as new field for and beyond FaaS
Rob Keulemans: No because, well, I started in 2017 with Circular Interiors as a separate entity, a few years later, we established the Circular Hub as a legal entity. And within the Circular Hub, we refurbish products, ahrend Gispen products, our brands. In the Circular Hub, not only the products that come out of the Furniture as a Service proposition, but also products that we refurbish on behalf of our clients. So now we have a Circular interiors entity where all the assets are located on the balance sheet, and we have another entity where we refurbish our products and also the products for Furniture as a Service. So that’s now a new product. A new entity within the group. Uh, so we now have the FAAS entity.
We now also have the refurbishing entity. So I think we now have, we have a factory, we have to design we have the end of life processes. So I think on the entire value chain we now are active.
[00:16:24] FaaS using existing Logistics Processes
Patrick Hypscher: on the value chain side logistics. It’s another topic because if you start these models, you have to start thinking about return logistic and I guess on the forward logistics, you use the same processes as the, the normal sales model. But the return logistic is, does it use the same infrastructure with the same people, the same partners, or do you also there added additional partners?
Rob Keulemans: No, that’s also because we do not only refurbish for our furniture as a service portfolio, but also for existing clients. So the return logistics was already very much in place. So that was not so much of an issue.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay.
[00:17:03] Introducing a Circular ERP System for the whole company
Rob Keulemans: Thinking about ERP systems, for instance, if you start developing a new product and you produce a new product, you typically have a bill of material of components. And then you have a routing via the fabric or via the factory and then you end up with a new product. Whereas if you now look at our automation in in the circular model, you start with a second hand chair . So you first have to disassemble it. Then you have to replace some parts and then you have to assemble it again. So it is an inverse bill of material, as you can say it that way. So first you take it apart and then you build it up again. So if you look from an From an IT point of view, this is really difficult, but this is also something we solved, but I think that is the return logistics is not so much of an issue, what needs to be done afterwards, and if you want to control it, if you want to have that in a proper IT system, that’s where the headache starts.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, I, I can agree. Having experience in organization built for linear sales.
Rob Keulemans: exactly.
Patrick Hypscher: You know, maybe a model number or but you don’t know the specific item. Not to talk about components when they come back. How did you solve that one?
Rob Keulemans: we are currently solving it. So I’m not saying that it has been done already. But what you see typically in, I think in the circular models and and I think that’s also a little bit of a worrying trend, I would say, is that a secondhand product is not by definition a circular solution, it’s much more than and what we are trying to do now is to industrialize our return flow. So what we’re trying to do is we have a belt in which we, for instance, produce a chairs so we will extend to the bell, the belt a bit where now not the belt or chair or desk is built up from new components, but where it starts with an existing product that we disassemble and then put together. Yeah, if you look at, uh, our ERP system that used to work to start components and with finished product, you can imagine that we now start on the other side and that is that is really complicated. But I think we have solved it almost.
Patrick Hypscher: I’m not sure if you, if you can tell more about that one. My observation is with these kinds of IT challenges, you, you almost always start with customization because there are not 10 tools out there that support exactly what you just said, yeah, the remanufacturing process. Are there five solutions ready out there and you picked one or is it then also tweaking your existing IT systems.
Rob Keulemans: Now, by coincidence, we were looking for a new ERP system already. So what we did in our so we set up a process in selecting a new ERP system. So we gave them a challenge, all of them to present their preferred solution on that reversed manufacturing process. All the, the big names in ERP, we asked them all to to provide us with their solution on these reversed challenges. And they all did, and they all had a very different solution to it.
And we selected the one I cannot disclose which one it is, uh, but that was really I think the main driver for replacing ERP.
They also very much liked it because that was also new to them
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah.
Rob Keulemans: because, well, typically material goes in and a product goes out and this is very different. So they liked it very much. And I personally believe that this is something that will become more common in ERP going forward.
[00:20:42] RFID Tags and QR Codes as identifier
Patrick Hypscher: And does that also then cover the asset management of the furnitures that are rented out, but still under the ownership of your entity? Is this also then integrated in the ERP or do you then have another asset management tools for that?
Rob Keulemans: Yeah. So what we do is at the end of our production line, if we produce new furniture at the end of the production line, each and every furniture item gets an RFID tag and a QR code in which you can easily see what exactly what kind of materials in there, what the production date is, the weight of the product, the, the EPD. So all of the information of that specific furniture item is stored in that RFID tag. And that’s also when we sell it through Furniture as a Service, we know immediately if we enter a customer’s premise, we immediately know what kind of furniture items is owned by Furniture as a Service, because you can scan those RFID tags, and those RFID tags that belong to Furniture as a Service will be highlighted, and then we know what we can pick up.
And it’s also important in case of a bankruptcy of a customer in furniture as a service. That’s also something we already experienced. And then you have to I don’t know the English word of an of a curator who is solving the insolvency, uh, but then you have to prove that that product is yours and that it’s not an asset of the company in in trouble. So, therefore, an identification on the product is also in the circular world becoming more and more important because what we also do within the RFID tag. If we maintain a product or we refurbish a product, we keep a maintenance log on that on that RFID tag. So if you scan a certain product that is 10 years old, you can easily see the maintenance history of that specific item. So you can see we replaced the, the, the, the fabric or we replace, well, whatever we replaced . It’s all in that log and that makes it very important to, to identify the products and to see what has been, uh, maintained or replaced already so that you don’t overdo it.
[00:22:53] Gradual integration of processes
Patrick Hypscher: And I understand correctly that when we look at your operations the manufacturing, the forward logistic, the, the current logistic, also probably installation, this is pretty integrated approach that most of the key services are done by ahrend employees.
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, but that’s not true, but that’s not how we started
because we started it as a startup. And what we try to do is to pick and choose more and more processes from the existing organization where they can add value. And then we get used to it from both sides. And now we are trying to integrate more and more. But we started it as a startup. So the refurbishing capability, it’s called Circular Hub. That’s a separate entity. Our furniture as a service portfolio is in Circular Interiors. So we started it as a startup. It’s a startup within a corporate, I would say. And we make use of all the existing processes that are out there, but also skip the ones we do not believe add value to it. So yeah, that’s how we do it.
[00:23:57] Strategic Decision to seize the opportunity of lasting furniture
Patrick Hypscher: Let’s look last at the people and culture aspect. If you follow the journey as you just described, it also requires senior and middle management buy in, and of course also buy in of the employees handling that. And I also was surprised that given your history and your positions before, you immediately started at Arend doing furniture as a service.
From the outside, it looks like there has been a strategic decision on Arend’s side to say this is something we want to develop and we put a focus on and this is the way we want to go. And there was some initial commitment to that as a basis for a later integration.
Rob Keulemans: Yeah. Yeah. The decision to to start Furniture as a Service was was taken already before I joined. So I joined to to bring this to life. So there was a, yeah, there was a lot of commitment from senior management. And the reason for it being is because if you are in a linear model and you sell a chair today, then you have your your income today and your margin today. um, That’s well, that’s, that’s, that’s beautiful. But if you can add value throughout the economic lifespan or the technical lifespan of a particular product and put it into more cycles, You can maybe earn more in multiple cycles. And that is something we really believe in.
Because what you see is it’s something we did not, did not yet touch upon. Uh, the technical lifespan of our products is much and much and much longer than the economic lifespan or the usage period of a customer. Because typically a company or a customer of ours, they change offices every seven years, I think on average. Whereas the technical lifespan of our products is easily 15 years. So if you also want to benefit from the afterlife of something you have produced 10 years ago, it makes much more sense. Also from a circular point of view to remain the owner of the product. And then the benefit, the upside for us is to design better products that are easier to do the third or fourth cycle. But then again, at the same time to also earn more money on the cycles in the afterlife. And I think that works very well. So that was strategically decided that we should yeah, add more services and more models like this into our company.
Patrick Hypscher: This is also the basis then for, for later on integration. And there, there were not so much let’s say principle fights and discussions about the integration.
Rob Keulemans: No, and let’s let me be very clear. furniture as a service is not the only solution to the circular challenge because we very much believe, and that’s something we see in all large large clients is that they have a refurbishing need anyway, whether it’s furniture as a service or not. They have strict ambitions also from an ESG point of view, or they have an an SBTI in there. So they want to reduce and you can reduce on, well, multiple ways you can reduce where furniture as a service, we believe is a very easy one to do but it will take time to convince each and every one to do it. But on the other hand, if they want us to refurbish their existing furniture, we are very happy to do it.
And then. You automatically are within the existing processes anyway. So the integration, yeah, will, will follow almost immediately from a customer demand point of view.
[00:27:23] More flexible service adjustments as the next challenge to solve
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. And if you look at the status quo right now what I feel like listening to what you said, you already reached a high, pretty high level of integration. What are the areas where I say this is still rather separate and might be something to integrate in the future.
Rob Keulemans: Yeah. What is what is still difficult is let’s say you have a company and you employ a hundred people. And, So then in a company of a hundred people, you have a hundred desks, you have a hundred chairs, what it used to be, now it’s less more, less, it’s, it’s much less, but let’s say that you used to have a hundred people and a hundred desks and a hundred chairs, which is certainly not the case anymore.
For this continue. So then you have 200 items, and then you have some visitor chairs in a meeting room. And so let’s say that you have 300 or 400 assets in a particular building. And what we try to do is in our subscription model is to make it very flexible. So if a customer does not need his desk or chair anymore, he can scan it and he can send it back. And then I would say for invoicing, all of that, that is something that is still pretty difficult. That’s not part of our normal ERP where we produce or manufacture our products. This is a separate solution kind of a custom build. Uh, but if we can automate that a little bit better and a little bit further, I think that would really drive value because we still have a separate administration within Circular Interiors. And you can imagine if you have a customer that sends back five chairs and wants to have another 10 uh, for it, then well, there are a lot of transactions and that’s the part that is, I would say, still not so advanced at this moment.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. And you don’t want to tell the customer it’s not possible because of the IT system.
Rob Keulemans: Yeah, exactly. So we, we simply do it, but that’s causing a real headache every now and then.
So that’s something we can improve. But I’m very happy that on the other side, the integration of the refurbishing capabilities, that that is something that is very, very much integrated. And this is something we can certainly solve someday.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Wonderful.
[00:29:32] The need for a lasting product designed for disassembly
Patrick Hypscher: Rob, I have three last generic questions. Everyone in this series gets . The first one Is about also your role as a manufacturer what’s, what’s the main thing you need to make sure as a manufacturer before you start a circular product as a service?
Rob Keulemans: I would say, do you have a product that is is able to do multiple cycles at multiple customers? I think that’s the first important question to ask.
Then secondly, that is something that we started very early already. The design for disassembly. Make sure that you can refurbish those items. I think that’s a very important element. So that would be my first response to it. So do you have a product that fits this model? And if it does, then go for it.
[00:30:21] Professionalisation of the Refurbishment Industry
Patrick Hypscher: The second question it’s more about the future. What kind of trends do you expect in the next five years when it comes to circular renting?
Rob Keulemans: It’s not strange that I say this but what I mentioned before, there are currently in the market, a lot of companies who label themselves as being a very circular solution. And I think. What needs to be done in this circular market is that it will professionalize that we will have more KPIs to it and that we can, that our customers can easily see the difference between supplier A and supplier B, because if you look at what kind of certification you need, if you manufacture a new product and what kind of certification is necessary, if you buy a second hand product or a refurbished product, that is unbelievable because there are no certifications necessary for the second one. Whereas at the first, you need to have all of it in place.
So I very much believe that this market needs to professionalize. And what I also feel, and that’s not because I work for a manufacturer, but I also very much believe that a manufacturer is the one who can do this the best can also learn from refurbishing himself in order to design even better products. So that’s what we, that’s what we need to do. And Yeah, I think also from a product liability point of view, I think also there, there needs to be legislation coming into play or, you know, certifications or whatever. But if an accident happens because of a faulty refurbished product, well, I think we can wait for it for the first time to happen.
Patrick Hypscher: Rob, my last question is about people because this podcast is about sharing knowledge and also connecting people. And you certainly have some goals you want to reach and you have some challenges. People listen to it right now. What kind of people should reach out to you?
Rob Keulemans: Oh, I’m very interested to learn from other manufacturers how they solved this issue. So I’m also very open to learn from other industry. That’s also very interesting to see. So I would say anyone has to, as a clear view on this domain, I’m very open to to meet because I think we are in a transition and the transition will last for a few more years, I guess.
But so, whoever has the same objectives and the same ambition and the same dream I am very happy to talk to.
Patrick Hypscher: Thanks a lot, Rob. Thanks also for leading that transition and sharing your experience.
Rob Keulemans: Thank you.
Patrick Hypscher: This was another episode of PaaS Decoded. 16 conversations about the fine details of product as a service. If you liked it, share this episode with colleagues or on social media. If you missed a question or topic, please send me an email so I can improve the conversations for you. If you learned something from this episode, please provide a review via Spotify or Apple Podcasts. That helps others to discover the podcast. And don’t forget, the most abundant renewable resource is your imagination.