“The charm of FHI is that it is an offensive, progressive club”

Farewell interview with Kees Groeneveld

Kees Groeneveld waves goodbye. The former FHI director is retiring after 27 years of service at Het Instrument and FHI respectively. In this farewell interview he looks back on the turbulent times and the successes of the federation. By: Dimitri Reijerman It started in the fifties. In 1956, a number of importers and manufacturers of instrumentation wanted to organize a trade fair without being dependent on third commercial parties. This is how the cooperative association Het Instrument was born. The Het Instrument fair took off enormously: tens of thousands of visitors attended the fair in the 1980s. Four specializations gradually emerged, says Groeneveld: “Four sectors developed within the fair and within the association: suppliers of electronics measuring and test equipment, companies with measuring and control equipment for industry, instrumentation for laboratories and for medical equipment. That division still exists.” “Over the years, the fair switched locations several times, back and forth between RAI Amsterdam and Jaarbeurs Utrecht. The background to this was of course negotiating the best condition for the exhibitors, the members of the association. In this way we prevented the interests of the RAI or the Jaarbeurs from prevailing over the interests of the exhibitors," says a visibly combative Groeneveld. The starting point was always the idea that every member of Het Instrument has equal rights and obligations, a philosophy that still forms a cornerstone of the federation: “In principle, a multinational has the same rights as a one-man company. A dominant market party cannot claim that it will get a stand at the front because it is very large, even if that company happens to provide the chairman,” says Groeneveld. This created a rotation system to fairly distribute the most beautiful places on the exhibition floor.

Different rules of the game

A number of rules of the game also changed in the 1990s. For example, exhibitors were initially not allowed to show products that had been shown at Het Instrument at another fair that year. These rules have been abolished because they were no longer permitted due to competition law. “If you were a member you of course received a hefty discount, which is still relevant. And there were big parties every now and then. Those were good incentives,” says Groeneveld.

“If you were a member you of course received a hefty discount”

At a certain point, the Het Instrument association also developed activities for its members other than just organizing the fair: “That started to support the profile of the fair: collecting market figures. Trend studies were set up and product statistics were drawn up.” Another development where the members had a common interest was the threat that generous early retirement schemes and binding collective labor agreements posed. The members were also able to successfully anticipate this. They thus remained outside these collective labor agreements. In 1991, the Het Instrument Federation was founded following the joining of the members of the FIAR association. “It was then decided to create four associations and a federation. A few years later the name was changed to FHI, federation of technology industries.” Over the years, FHI has grown into a broadly developed trade association. And for Groeneveld, this also involved serious lobbying: “The network has become increasingly important. FHI has also become more visible in The Hague. Not defensively, but first and foremost to stimulate technology development and the market. At the time we called that expanding the pie, selling more tea than Pickwick. So expand the market instead of stealing market share from each other. The charm of FHI has always been that it is an offensive, progressive club.”

Cluster formation

Another FHI value are the clusters, small subgroups of member companies that operate in the same specific market segment. “Through that concept we were able to give shape and content to FHI's network function. Selling tea together instead of Pickwick via the specific group of suppliers of electronics test and measuring equipment, for example. One of the best examples is the Development Club. When market development in electronics became more and more dependent on smaller companies that started developing new products for third parties, the time was ripe to gather those companies under the 'strong together' concept. Through FHI, that group was able to make a strong impact in the market, as an alternative to the large concerns, and FHI can use this route in The Hague to highlight how important smaller companies are in the further development of the technology base of the Dutch economy." says Groeneveld. The clusters are now commonplace within FHI. The clusters organize meetings themselves and thus ensure interaction within a smaller group. In this way, interesting partnerships are regularly created between the companies and you can go to the market together.

Cooperation with the government

Groeneveld also says that FHI has organized projects together with the government to make it clearer to the public what you can do with the technology. And in addition to lobbying the government, the bond with the scientific world has also become close: “There is no sector in the Netherlands that, by its nature, has such direct contact with science. Because all scientific equipment at universities and laboratories comes from FHI members.”

“There is no sector in the Netherlands that, by its nature, has such direct contact with science”

According to Groeneveld, this connection has become more intensive, especially in the laboratory world: “Instead of pushing boxes, which was often the case at the end of the last century, the FHI members have started to provide much more added value. This makes our companies less vulnerable and less sensitive to economic cycles,” he says. Groeneveld also praises the proactive attitude of FHI and its members in setting up the RTA Foundation. This organization is engaged in the collection and processing of discarded technological equipment. RTA in response to the legal obligation that the European and National government imposed on suppliers in 2005. The fact that such flows can now be better controlled is partly due to the FHI action that was initiated in 1992. Based on the budget that became available from the proceeds of the fair, a process was started, together with KEMA, in which hundreds of FHI member companies were introduced to the ISO 9000 standard for quality assurance through a series of workshops. Traceability via digital systems became the norm within FHI companies. The former FHI director is still closely associated with the RTA Foundation as chairman of the board.

Looking back and forward

Looking back, Groeneveld has experienced that personally combining the organization of marketing activities on the one hand and the advocacy aspect on the other hand is something that few people can do: “There are few people who can make this combination good. If you have to meet targets and deadlines for an event, it is difficult to keep track of how a lobby file is developing, let alone always be there on time if a fire breaks out.” Observing what appears in the media under the heading 'tech', the former FHI director sees a lot of hype and humbug. Even after his retirement, he continues to write about it: “My next column will probably be called 'the tech crisis', with a question mark. The so-called tech funds are going down. Of course, a company like Facebook is not a technology company at all. It is a marketing service with a lot of air, just like World Online and NewConomy, for those who remember what happened in 2001. I think we should continue to put our finger on that insight.” Groeneveld sees more perspective in the rise of biology in crossovers with all kinds of different sectors, such as in the fairly traditional chemical sector. But also in electronics, via micro-nano technology, because no market that focuses on real value creation is as dynamic as this one.