With a festive program in which journalist and innovation watcher Erwin Witteveen took the invitees on a tour of the principles of our digital network society, DGA Henk Smid presented the new look of 'his' Variass.
Numerus fixus
Ineke Dezentjé Hamming, chairman of FME, and Kor Visscher, chairman of Innovatiecluster Drachten and director of Philips in Drachten, gave their views on attracting and retaining the right technical personnel. They did not have a good word to say about the numerus fixus that technical universities may want to introduce to limit the number of students. ,,Our companies have many vacancies for technical graduates and I expect that this number will only increase in the future,” said Kor Visscher. According to the Financieele Dagblad, tecnic universities cannot handle the influx of new students and want more money from the government to keep quality high. Education Minister Bussemaker has stated she supports a numerus fixus.
Partnership
After a downturn at the end of the 1980s, financial manager Henk Smid took over the company in 1991, under - to really start with a clean slate - a new name: Variass. Smid used his financial and business background to increase customer service. In the course of the nineties, Variass moved from purely technical work to more complex parts and modules, for which it also built its own supply chain. We unburden our customers. Gradually, our earnings model changed: in the early years, we earned money by supplying capacity, nowadays it's all about delivering added value.” Smid explains that Variass nowadays works in a partnership with the customer. ”If we deliver added value, we are the best partner for our customers."