ABB to begin `transformation'.(new customer focus)(Brief Article)

Control Engineering Europe, April, 2001

Since the days of Percy Barnevik, who introduced in the late 1980s a complex but elegant decentralised matrix organisation to run the business of ABB, the company has been considered a model for others to follow as they pursue the path of global enterprise. But since that time, ABB has acquired so many control and instrument companies Mr. Barnevik's structure is starting to look like an Excel spreadsheet with asterisks in its cells.

A case in point: Swedish paper manufacturer Stora Enso counts no less than nine ABB product sales engineers knocking on its doors, "each one living his own life" as Jorgen Centerman, the new president and ceo, likes to say. To tackle the problem, Mr. Centerman is determined to replace these nine with a new "customer interface...

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