Mike White

'We have come a long way in just four years of life as a company,' says Mike White, Vice President for Large Enterprise and Global Accounts, who looks after the biggest customers around the world, and travels more in one year than most people would in a lifetime.

'When Siemens and Fujitsu originally put this company together, we were too German-centric and focused on the volume market. I was brought in to address these issues, and we have been working hard to take the company into overseas markets and to broaden our value proposition.

'We now have over 40% of our sales outside Germany and a 50:50 product split between large enterprise systems and volume products, although in the Middle East we are still too focused on volume rather than value products.'

It has to be said that Fujitsu Siemens Computers has not been lucky with currency movements in the past few years. The weak dollar and strong euro has not been good for German manufacturers.

'We trade in dollars so that our partners in the region do not have to hedge against currency risk,' says Mr. White. 'That suits us better than when they hedged themselves and passed this additional cost on to the customer.

'Where we compete is on quality. It is not just the price you pay for boxes that counts. It is the whole life-cycle cost of a product. We offer a company with a German business culture that has a high emphasis on quality and excellent service.

'We apply this across the whole group and try our best to achieve universal standards in the 23 countries in which we operate, mainly in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It does mean getting close to the client, and being able to sit down with them and discuss their requirements. So I spend a lot of time flying and so does most of the sales team.'

Part of the Fujitsu Siemens Computer value chain is the ability for one company to supply the entire solution for an enterprise - from the Pocket Loox PDA up to mainframes operating on Linux, Windows or Solaris.

'This is a great company to work for,' says Mr. White, 'and I think that is reflected in the quality of the staff that we attract. People like working for us.'

Over the next few years he promises 'heavy investment' in Saudi Arabia, combined with a 'big push for growth' in Dubai, Egypt and Oman. 'Virtualization' is a key buzzword inside Fujitsu Siemens.

And Mr. White confirms that the Internet is the platform most systems will be working on in the future, with the enormous benefits of end-to-end solutions from client to final delivery.