SAINT-GOBAIN WEBER BEAMIX

Bas Huysmans – CEO

Saint-Gobain employs 190,000 people in 64 countries. The company is divided into four divisions, each with its own area of ​​expertise, which are so closely linked that it ranks among the world's 100 most innovative and largest industrial companies. The company houses seven general research institutes, twelve specialized research institutes, and around 100 development departments that each of the four divisions utilizes: innovative materials, construction distribution, packaging materials, and building products. I'm interviewing Bas Huysmans, Managing Director of Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix, the founders of the DIY market, about this last division.

What have they done with the Bitsing method and what can they tell you about growing many times faster than the market?

Bas Huysmans explains: "You must always keep moving forward. Standing still means going backward. Or, to put it metaphorically, 'stagnant water stinks.' To move forward, you sometimes have to let go of the old familiar. That's not easy for some people. For many in our company, working with the Bitsing method meant venturing into uncharted territory. What happens then is that people are always a bit hesitant at first, wondering what will happen. Always keep that in mind, be patient, and take things one step at a time. It doesn't have to be 100% perfect right away. Over time, they'll realize how serious it is."

What you'll see is that many people still operate from the "I think that" principle. We're used to working with "assumptions." What we've done is gradually try to bring things much more to the facts. As they are, and not as people think they are. People are used to working from a sort of "I have a task, so I'll just do something."

Understanding the Bitsing method wasn't the problem, but getting people to act on it was the challenge for us. That's why we integrated it step by step into our daily operations.

We started by raising awareness of our sales target. Everything we do should generate revenue. It was quite ambitious. A significant increase in a construction market that had been damaged and struggling by the recession of the past five years. Imagine that! People were worn down by the negativity of recent years. Nevertheless, we immediately shifted the organization's focus based on the pencil philosophy. It turned out we were spending a significant amount of time and money on markets, target groups, and products that didn't contribute significantly to our revenue. Considering that the vast majority of our revenue came from 1.3% of our product range, shifting to a realistic focus immediately resulted in 20% growth. Those pencils were a fantastic tool for convincing everyone in the organization of the need to shift their focus.

In practice, this focus means actively cultivating your markets. We've achieved this with our uncopyable proposition: the advantage we have as the founder of the DIY market: advantage through origin.

Each of the departments involved took on their own part of the BITSER program. For example, B and I were responsible for marketing, T and S for sales, and E and R for account management. They all developed their own programs based on our golden principle: advantage through origin. Because everyone in our organization understood what this meant, the departments could each independently develop their own derivative BI, TS, and ER programs. Finally, everyone was brought together, and there we had a cohesive BITSER program, developed by each of our departments. What was so special was that we created awareness that the departments had become inseparable from independent entities. Marketing is aware that Sales cannot sell without B and I, and Sales must realize the T and S for account management, which must retain the customers acquired by Sales, otherwise everything from marketing and sales would be for nothing. Solidarity and collegiality became visible core values ​​within our organization.

People always see the mountain getting bigger first, because letting go is very difficult.

People are quick to say, "I'm already so busy," or "It works completely differently for me." As the "What kind of pencil are you using?" and the roles the departments played within the BITSER model became clearer, things became easier and now almost automatic.

If you could describe in one word what Bitsing has done for you, what word would it be?

Streamlining! That's the key word. You came in here with the story that everyone in an organization is busy with their own thing,

But there's actually no one involved with the entire process from start to finish. And we at Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix were in a situation where we had a marketing department, a sales department, an R&D department, and a production department, all doing their own things. While they did have some common ground and points of contact, they weren't exactly streamlined. So, they weren't working with or for each other.

And that word "streamlining" was actually the trigger for me to say, "This sounds like music to my ears." We might be able to do something with that. Well, I think the structured approach that Bitsing brings forces an organization to harmonize its forces and work in a structured way to achieve the same goal. That was my motivation for adopting Bitsing, and in practice, it's proving to be quite successful.

The language of sales is a completely different language than the language of marketing. Both involve a lot of busyness, action, and stress, but they're different types of busyness, action, and stress, all in different languages. So it's very difficult to have sufficient empathy for each other across that boundary—what's the term for it—and to respond to each other's opportunities and challenges.

And through this Bitsing process, the organization speaks a much more unified language. Everyone now knows what a key product is, and everyone knows that you can only entice a customer to buy if they like you. It really doesn't matter whether you're in marketing or sales, or production or innovation; you speak the same language, you understand the intention, and you also see the impact of what the other person does on your own business.

The interaction between these different disciplines has suddenly become much more interconnected and, I'd say, almost visual for the people in the various departments, particularly the sales, marketing, and after-sales organizations.

Does this also give them more respect for each other's work?

Bas confirms: "Yes. Because you understand each other better what you're doing and why you're doing it, there's also a greater mutual willingness to collaborate and contribute. And because this increases the impact of everyone's efforts, that's motivating. And that, in turn, leads to better effort and performance, and then you almost have a self-reinforcing cycle, ideally."

And what we are doing now is to gradually take that to the next level.

Yes, what you see when you learn a new language is that in the initial phase you make a huge effort to learn words and conjugations, so you start to understand the language, but you don't speak it yet. And we're at the stage where we know the language, where we can get by on vacation, but when it comes to running a business, we don't speak it well enough yet. And that's also why I decided to learn the language more fluently.

What other effects do you see?

Internally, I see that we're starting to gain a better understanding of our near-future plans. So, where we used to do things based on gut feeling, developing products, and implementing campaigns, we're now more systematic and can better prepare our internal organization. So, on the development side, we're developing more focused. And on the operations side, we're better prepared for what we're going to sell. And on the marketing and sales side, we're targeting the markets more effectively. I've clearly seen progress there.

Especially because marketing and sales have given much more thought to what we need to do, it is also easier for my people to communicate to production and logistics what should be expected.

What's really difficult is not doing things we've always done. People initially tend to add Bitsing. They see it as an increase in workload. Like, they've come up with something new. But as the first steps are taken and progress continues, you'll see them become increasingly enthusiastic and realize that Bitsing is actually very enlightening.

You are growing now?

Bas: "Yes. We're growing more than twice the market. That means we're gaining market share. And yes, that's due to something. Of course, part of it is due to the organization, with a very structured management team, and part of it is due to the fact that we're more focused as an organization. And the decisions we've made are based much more on facts than on feelings. We still follow our gut feeling, but the decision-making process has accelerated enormously because we started looking at the Bitsing plan, and as a result, we've started looking much more closely at the figures.

Because we had been through five years of crisis, and you came in just as things were starting to lighten up a bit, and things were starting to get a bit lighter, you presented a positive story, a very simple one, one that I, as a techie, completely understood. That's important. It's as simple as it can be. You presented it in a way that, through its simplicity, is so clear that everyone who hears it says, "Yes, of course, I already knew that, but let's do it." Because it's so logical that it can't help but work.

You came along at just the right time with a nice story that resonated with my need to shake up that internal structure and arrange it more tightly. With a logic I can grasp, without the complicated Christmas trees. Well, that's what made me decide to take up Bitsing.

Every entrepreneur wants results.

There are plenty of people who spend millions on projects without any idea of ​​their potential or potential. It's quite unusual. The success of Bitsing hinges on how rigorously the Bitsing plan is implemented. If we just do it halfway, it won't work. You can certainly add other things; you have to maintain a bit of individuality. But I believe that if you only half-heartedly implement the Bitsing plan, it's pointless.

With Bitsing, you don't just do a little action here and a little action there. You cover the whole story. And that's what has helped us grow. If we hadn't bitten, we might have done those actions too, but I think we would have only covered 25% of the total necessary package. And would it have yielded any results then? I doubt it! Because you're now thinking it through completely, from start to finish, you create a complete story, capturing the prospect and customer much more deeply, preventing them from swimming backward.

I think what we did up until now, we did those actions, we hung the trap in the water, but the bait was only up to the first ring of the trap and if the fish was smart, it would turn around and quickly swim the other way.

And now we have six decoys, the BITSER decoys, which trap him so deep in the trap that he can't really back out. And because it's being targeted in a way that matches the Bitser step he's standing on, he's always a happy fish!' says Bas, laughing.

The story is complete. The "advance through origin" slogan is practically unmissable these days, because it's on the vehicles, it's in the videos, it's in the promotions we run, it's in the commercials we air, online, in everything.

What is that one central thing that you say is very characteristic within our company, for the success?

Service. The customer is our priority, the customer is right, the customer never complains, and we always have a solution. Because we excel at coming up with creative solutions. That's also our downfall. So, for a very long time, we were like firefighters, going from one fire to the next, then it was over, then we were happy for a minute, and then we moved on to the next fire. But it turns out that we provide top-notch service that truly sets us apart in the market. Customers come to us when they have a problem they can't really solve. And the funny thing is, it's often about logistical issues, not about products. If something is logistically difficult, complicated, or challenging, they call us. For example, the project involving wind turbines in the ocean that were sinking. They call us and ask, "Guys, we have a problem here, how are we going to solve this?" And we come up with a solution on the spot. So, in addition to having an enormously wide standard range, both in terms of products and logistics, we are still able to truly think from the customer's perspective in terms of solutions and come up with creative systems with which we can actually solve the problem.

The funny thing is, price is no longer relevant, so it doesn't matter what it costs, because you're solving a problem that's so many times bigger than what our solution costs. That customer is always happy.

In principle, we've built up so much experience over the past 50 years, in so many areas and solutions, that we've implemented a solution for virtually every problem, ensuring this library remains easily accessible. If necessary, we can do anything. So, the entire Sait-Gobain Weber Beamix appliance is also built on flexibility—a key pillar.

So everything we do, everything we invest should increase our flexibility, not limit it.

What I'd like to convey to the reader is that you shouldn't limit yourself to a few products and a single target audience. That's much less reliable. Because if the market collapses, you're out of the running. To use pencil terminology, "getting your revenue from just a single pencil product or target audience leaves you very vulnerable if you can't sharpen a point anymore."

Diversify and use the pencil philosophy. Things are always going well somewhere, and things are always going poorly somewhere. But that mix allows you to navigate that market comfortably. Bitsing helps us focus and concentrate, and sometimes even let things slide. Things that aren't generating revenue, or aren't profitable. That's how we did it. And not without merit. We're currently growing by 22%.