You are looking for the niche. That makes it special and the work extra fun.
You get to pick up a lot at Neways
Mireille de Geus has been working as Market Intelligence Manager at Neways for just under a year, a relatively new position in which she mainly ‘looks outside’. She praises the collaboration with her colleagues as well as the freedom she is given to take on issues.
“I have a technical business management background and for a long time I worked at a company where I looked inwards a lot, which I did for Neways in the beginning as well, but since about a year I have been working as Market Intelligence Manager. For Neways, I look at which markets we serve and what trends are going on in them. For example, for the semiconductor market I look worldwide, for automotive I look at Europe again. What are the important markets? Which markets are growing fast? But also where Neways does not want to be active,” says Mireille.
"Because we don't make finished products, the work is a little more complex. Customers only come to us when they can't buy a standard product."
Mireille de Geus
Searching for the niche
“Because we don’t make finished products, the work is a little more complex. Customers only come to us when they can’t buy a standard product. Our business is therefore never self-evident and you don’t find that easily in the market figures, so I always have to make a translation.
An example? At Neways, we look at the electronic component of a product. Is it a market we can do something with? Take Robotics, a huge market with big players that is already quite mature and therefore less interesting for Neways. We are looking for the niche in precision engineering, for example an eye laser or surgical robot. This makes it special and the work extra fun.”
Collaborate
“I try to back everything up with numbers. Thanks to a tool, I get relevant news items, I send updates to my colleagues about what is happening outside our company. Although I mainly look outside, I also look inside. Because if I don’t know what’s happening at Neways, I can’t look outside either. Market intelligence is a relatively new discipline within Neways. We are now in the phase of informing people. In the next phase we are going to “crunch” a lot more data, then grab Neways data, look at the market and create scenarios.
We just made strategy plans with our global sales directors, and I find it interesting to talk about where you’re going together, what vision to bet on, what markets to approach. We do that together: I look at the market side and where the opportunities lie, they look at the customer side. I also work together with colleagues from Neways Technology. They bring in specialized technical knowledge that I merge with the sector strategy plan, making it one plan.
I guide my colleagues in defining the strategy. I enjoy this collaboration and it gives me energy.