Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Todd Bouman, President and CEO of NEC Display Solutions of America, knew from his high school days that he wanted to be a leader; his aim now is to make sure that NEC Display Solutions is also the leader in the industry.
We interviewed Bouman last week from his Itasca, Illinois, office (a suburb of Chicago) where he has only been ensconced for two months.
But we could judge that he’s a fast learner, and with a broad background in executive management, product management, product marketing, operations and supply chain strategies, we’re sure there’s little detail that will escape his eyes.
At NEC, Bouman is responsible for driving market leadership, product innovation, channel development and solutions selling. He also will drive the growth and evolution of new technologies and services to help people and organizations dynamically share and interact with digital information.
The Michigan native previously served as vice-president marketing for commercial displays and mobile products at Samsung Electronics, and earlier held numerous operational and product marketing roles at HP.
“My father was an electrical engineer, and I knew very early that IT interested me, and that I wanted to be in leadership,” says Bouman.” It was my goal, and with that in mind, it made it very easy to know whom I wanted to work for.
“So my career moves have been very methodical. I knew I needed broad experience, and I’ve learned that that was a very good idea.”
After earning his MBA in marketing at the University of California at Davis and a bachelor’s degree in business administration/management at California State University/San Jose, Bouman undertook the wide experience route, largely at HP.
“Not everything excited me,” he admits. “Some people love supply chain and operations. For me, it wasn’t very exciting, but I knew that I had to know it to have the clarity to bring products to market.”
Sales and marketing turned out to be much more to his liking.
“I like meeting people and also dealing with marketing and knowing and showing the advantages of the value proposition,” he says. “I expect to be applying everything I know, meeting people, seeing where we are going, and setting strategy and vision to take NEC to the next level.“
Bouman credits Bernd Eberhardt, President and CEO (Geschäftsführer) of NEC Display Solutions Europe, who traveled back and forth between Europe and America for the last year, to having kept NEC on an even keel following the departure of Pierre Richer, former President and CEO who left in the middle of 2014, as well as helping Bouman to get his own wheels in motion.
We asked Bouman if being President and CEO of NEC Display Solution was the pinnacle of his ambitions, but he neatly sidestepped that question, saying, ”I always am in the position of wanting to learn. Being here at NEC, I’m excited and energized, but I’m still at the beginning. The strategy at NEC hasn’t changed much over the past one or two years. While the focus is on solving problems for customers and bringing in the ecosystems, we really need the global infrastructure because our customers are more and more becoming global. This creates its own challenges. We want to be the global one to help them.”
Bouman says that NEC Display Solution of America is focusing on such key verticals as education, transportation and healthcare, and stresses that it is much more than a provider of hardware and software.
“We’re looking at the full ecosystem and seeing where we can put together the full infrastucture and resources needed by these clients. This might involve software; it might involve bringing in channel partners. We look at each situation on a case-by-case basis. When we talk about partners, we don’t mean mergers and acquisitions. We mean arranging partnerships according to the needs of the clients.”
We asked Bouman how NEC is marketing itself to become known by potential clients in the various verticals.
“We’re doing interviews; meeting customers and telling them our vision; using social media; appearing at trade shows like InfoComm; and, of course, using our NEC Showcase in New York. This will take place in November during New York Digital Signage Week, and we’re quite excited about it because we have a new venue – at SIR Stage37 – where we have a much more open space and can bring in more customers. It will be less about hardware and more about solutions and how to use technology to bring about solutions.”
Bouman says that the company is clearly looking at trends, and working closely with NEC’s R&D centres around the world to deliver what is needed.
“We want to be known as a company of innovation and a company that’s a leader, not a follower. We have a good foundation in play. We know it may need some refining and realigning of resources to meet what some players in the verticals are requesting. We really want to be able to deliver value.”
Bouman has been described by many others we spoke to, as a visionary, and we asked how he sees the industry and NEC in particular moving forward in the future.
“I get excited about how technology is being used and how the customers can use it,” he says. “It used to be that displays were mainly a medium to give information. Now, customers are wanting to use them to promote their brand and interact with their fans. I think this use will expand and grow. And as we transition and capture more about these fans and develop analytics and algorithms, well, I think this will help both the customers and the industry. Of course, we have to keep in mind the privacy issue, but we need to capture information that will help with both the Internet of Things and retail sales.
“Some big clients know the industry and have resources, but there are a lot who don’t, especially smaller clients. We’re seeing trends, though, where more and more clients want customization, where they look to technology to align better with their brands. They’re interested in deploying technology to meet their needs. We will work with partners to help them do that.”
As he repeated, “NEC wants to be the leader in both innovation and meeting the solutions clients require now and for the future.”
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