We have so much to celebrate as a business in 2022. We’ve been working together more closely than ever across our Handicare, Garaventa Lift, and Savaria business, and it’s incredible to see this paying off as we become Bigger Better Stronger Together!
We’ve been celebrating at our Ignite, Engage and Inspire events, and celebrating with Partners at our partner days across Europe. We’ve integrated our portfolios to offer even more to our customers, and our exciting new product launches will boost that offering even further. There have been challenges, but we’ve worked hard to overcome them, and we are so incredibly proud of everyone’s team efforts to get to where we are at the end of this year.
We have a big task ahead of us – reaching CAD$1bn won’t happen overnight – but we have the right tools, the right teams, and the right skills to absolutely smash that 2025 target together!
We hope you enjoy this issue of Connect magazine. You’ll notice throughout that there are QR codes to take you to our online Connect community, where you can find out all the latest news, get HR support, contact the IT team for help, and connect with colleagues around the world at the click of a button. Join the conversation on Connect online!
As we head towards the end of another fantastic year, we want to say thank you!
The latest additions to our product portfolio We have two huge product launches coming up in 2023… a new version of Garaventa Lift’s curved platform lift Artira and the Handicare 4000 twin rail curved stairlift.
Based in Garaventa Lift’s German office, Birgitt Wilke is co-ordinating the launch of the new Artira, with colleagues from the different functions including R&D, Operations, Finance, Sales, Marketing & Service. Guido Roversi, based in Italy, is co-ordinating with the North American team and will work closely with Birgitt on the project.
Dick Beerepoot from Handicare NL has been leading the team responsible for the Handicare 4000 project. Field trials are underway, and the team is working towards a trade sales launch at the end of January 2023. The 4000 has been eagerly anticipated by Partners, and will feature a redesigned power pack, a higher weight capacity on standard and heavy-duty models, and fewer stanchions for a sleeker finish on the stairs.
Alongside the launch of the 4000, we have also developed a new e-learning site, the Handicare Online Academy! This will mean we can get more partners trained to install the 4000 as soon as it’s launched, and will make life much easier for experienced engineers training on new products remotely rather than travelling to in-person Academy sites.
Both these new products are a huge step forward for our portfolio and we are super excited to get them launched so we can serve more customers around the world!
Read more online!
In September we launched the new “Sell Serve Support” initiative. This is a Handicare and Garaventa Lift integration project that we have now launched and plan to go live in January 2023.
We want Handicare Partners and some Local Authorities to have access to Garaventa Lift products as well as Handicare products. They’ll be able to access these products using the same sales, service and support teams that they usually deal with, to make it as easy as possible for them to buy our full range.
This is an exciting project that will help us to achieve our mission of changing someone’s life somewhere around the world every 5 minutes!
For more information, head to Connect Online for a video where Clare shares her vision for the project.
Did you know we collaborate with two organisations who provide work opportunities for people with disabilities. At our production sites in both Italy and the Netherlands, our teams have been supported for some years by people from the CSLS Cooperative in Lainate and Proverpakken & Ontwikkelen in Heerhugowaard working on assembly of our platform and chair lifts.
At Garaventa Lift in Italy, platform lifts are designed, manufactured and assembled at our factory in Lainate, just outside Milan. Since the business was established, Garaventa Lift has been cooperating with CSLS Cooperative, a not-for-profit
organisation that includes about 50 people with disabilities working alongside skilled employees and volunteers dedicated to integrated workplaces. Thanks to Garaventa Lift and also other companies that believe in the same values, these 50 people today have skilled jobs. We’ll be premiering a new video about this collaboration on Connect soon.
In Heerhugowaard we have been working with Proverpakken & Ontwikkelen for many years. Proverpakken & Ontwikkelen employs people who are out of the labour market. They match work with the right person and provide appropriate guidance and training.
This allows everyone to do what they are good at. It ensures that everyone has fun and dedication in their work. The group from Proverpak working at Handicare mainly deal with assembly work.
Promoting diversity and equal opportunities is important to our business – not just for the people who use our products. We are also proud to support inclusive workplaces and the work done by organisations like our partners in Italy and the Netherlands.
Our showrooms are incredible sales tools, where partners and end-users get hands-on with our lifts. Recently, we’ve been investing in redesigning some of these facilities around Europe…
The Handicare showroom in Kingswinford has undergone a huge refurbishment project. The new facility includes the range of Handicare stairlifts, as well as a working Vuelift Mini. There are meeting areas where BDMs can bring partners, and very soon Garaventa Lift platform lifts will be featured too.
of lifts in person, there is also a virtual showroom experience that customers can try out from the comfort of their own homes! Go to Connect online for a link to try out the virtual showroom for yourself.
In Switzerland, the new showroom was opened in 2021. As well as letting customers try the full range
And finally, there is a new training facility and showroom in Heerhugowaard. The redesigned space includes demo units with Handicare’s straight and curved lifts to give our Dutch engineers and surveyors the chance to train hands-on with the products.
...and the meeting space
The Heerhugowaard training room
The Vuelift in Kingswinford...
Thank you all for taking part in the recent Engagement Survey!
It was great to hear your opinions on how you’re finding life in the business, we’ve loved reading your responses. So much has changed since we last sent out a survey like this, so it’s been great to check in with everyone and get your ideas to shape the future of the business.
We’ll be putting new projects in place in response to your feedback, so keep an eye out for areas where you can get involved and put those plans into action!
After a trial in the UK this year, Vuelift is now available throughout Europe for Handicare partners!
Vuelift is the ultimate luxury home feature, providing crystal clear 360° views throughout the home as you glide between floors. Its customisable metal structure is available in every RAL colour to suit any style. In classic round, contemporary octagonal, or compact mini models there is a Vuelift for every home.
In October Alex and Sebastien Bourassa flew over from Canada for a tour of our European sites!
Their tour included visits to Garaventa Lift and Handicare teams in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands, where they heard updates on local strategies, product portfolios, and goals for the future.
The Bourassas were impressed with everyone’s hard work integrating the Garaventa Lift and Handicare teams, and our ambitious goals for growth and merging our product portfolios.
The tour was a brilliant opportunity for the leadership team to celebrate the hard work we’ve all been putting into working more closely together and integrating Handicare, Garaventa Lift, and
Savaria teams in Europe and Rest of World. We have a shared vision across the global Savaria group – to change more lives than ever with our accessibility products – and we’re making fantastic progress towards achieving them together.
You may have heard about Power BI, the new data software we’re introducing to let us visualise up-to-theminute data and make good business decisions. We caught up with Dans Hofrats, who’s coordinating the project, to tell us all about what Power BI will do for our business...
Power BI is a powerful, multidimensional pivot table that will significantly enhance the way we make decisions. It allows developers to connect to various
different data sources (AX, Navision, D365, SQL database etc.) and turn this data into targeted, user-friendly insights.
How are we introducing Power BI at Handicare?
Power BI is fairly new to Handicare. Awareness has grown over the last year as we rolled out a few solutions that saved a significant amount of time & resources across different departments.
Emma received her 10 year service award this year!
Emma Bowker is Direct Material Manager, overseeing procurement of materials for the business in Europe and Rest of World. We caught up with her to find out all about how her role has evolved over the past 10 years, and how we’ve faced the supply chain challenges the last few years have brought.
Congratulations on 10 years in the business! Can you tell us a bit about your role and how it’s evolved over your time here?
Thank you! I started with Handicare in 2012 as Senior Buyer. Back then purchasing was a local function and each Handicare site operated independently. We transformed into a Group Purchasing function in 2013 to share best practice, synergies and group volume across the Group. I have led this function since 2017. Handicare has seen many changes over the last decade. Now a part of
the Savaria family, I see even greater opportunity for the purchasing team to share our expertise and take advantage of synergies across the Group. We have some exciting projects in the pipeline.
We’ve all been aware of the global supply chain issues over the past two years. How has the situation affected us?
I think it’s safe to say the last 2 years have been the most challenging of my career! COVID, Brexit and most recently the war in Ukraine have provided us with a perfect storm of issues. These have impacted us from a cost perspective and given us new and significant challenges to ensure continuity of supply. That said, the team have been and are working tirelessly to mitigate shortages and find solutions to ensure, wherever possible, that our issues are not passed onto our customers.
We have been working through various types of risk mitigation with our suppliers and our product specs. For example, we have localised some supply, increased raw material at suppliers, increased stock and re-designed products. Handicare’s requirement for electronic chips (for use on our PCB’s and in remote control handsets) is markedly small, and so in a competitive market where volume purchases speaks volume, we have been left to stand in a long queue with the rest of the world. To support in this area we also now have Ultron, an electronics company that Savaria acquired last year, who are helping with day to day challenges, strategic planning and our longer term mitigation plans for all of the Groups electronics portfolio.
Our Handicare Partner days over the past few months have brought together partners across Europe
It was brilliant to get together in person again for these celebrations, to congratulate and thank Handicare Partners for their hard work during the last challenging few years, and look forward to everything the future holds!
In France, partners gathered in La Rochelle for the unveiling of our new 4000 stairlift, and to hear all about Handicare’s exciting plans for the future. The UK event in Manchester brought partners from across the country to a Formula 1 themed event to hear about how Handicare is Bigger Better Stronger as part of the Savaria family. The day conference of talks and workshops was followed by a black-tie dinner and the prestigious Handicare Awards. Finally, with Rehacare bringing mobility and accessibility businesses from Germany and Rest of World to Düsseldorf, Handicare hosted a VIP evening event to showcase our products to those attending the exhibition.
Billy Finnie from Mobility Scotland, winners of Dealer of the Year award at the UK event, said of the day... “An exceptional, standout event within the industry, the meticulous planning, organisation and presentations delivered an outstanding, technically insightful, and motivational day to remember.”
to celebrate our achievements and look ahead to our exciting future!
Throughout 2022 we’ve been selecting from your nominations for the Engage Awards! Each month the awards theme has focused on one of our Six Pillars, and we’ve had six different winners
who have been outstanding examples of Customer Service Excellence!
Huge congratulations to our winners who have gone above and beyond to show care and
respect for our customers, truly putting the end user at the heart of everything we do.
Our Trade Sales team headed to Barcelona in October for our fourth Ignite conference - the first in-person event since the Ignite programme launched! The event focused on our Big Bold Goals, and how we can think creatively, be ambitious, and dream big to achieve our bold sales targets.
The team made the most of the beach-side location for a game of football before the evening continued with dinner and the Ignite sales awards. Congratulations to Andreas,
Mirko, Stephanie, Dean and Anthony!
Everyone left the event feeling inspired and motivated to smash our ambitious targets for the next few years. By keeping the customer at the heart of everything we do, we can be Bigger Better and Stronger Together with our Savaria family!
See what the Ignite team had to say after the event:
Stephanie Boucly - “Loved the spirit of these two days! Such
inspired team players (football performances aside ��⚽��), all gathered to embrace the Savaria revolution which is round the corner! ��Thank you all ��"
Andreas Schaefer - “It’s so nice to be part of this great team and and company. ����let’s stick together and changed the world. Think big ��%����”
From strategy in the hotel...
...to football on the beach!
Since the Inspire leadership conference earlier this year, our Inspire teams have been working on bold new initiatives to support our strategy.
The three strategic priorities are: focus and simplify business processes, making everything we do more efficient; transform manufacturing profitability, keeping costs down and implementing
right first time processes; and accelerate growth, increasing our sales and implementing new marketing projects to boost our brand and level up our customer experience.
Keeping our end users at the heart of everything we do is much easier when we get to know them! Here are two interviews with customers in the Netherlands who told us about why their Handicare lift is important to them...
We got the key on 1 December 1972, which is almost 50 years ago now. It has undergone a few major renovations in the meantime, but I would like to live here for at least another 10 years.
Why is it important for you to be able to continue living at home?
So that I don’t become dependent on someone else and can do my own things.
Can you imagine living somewhere else?
No, I am so settled here. I would like to stay here as long as possible.
25 years ago on 12 March, I got the key. I moved in right after it was built.
I really enjoy living here because I’m nice and close to everything. Close to the train and the shops. I live just outside the city centre and all the hustle and bustle.
Are you happy with the stairlift from Handicare?
Very happy. This is a godsend for me because now I can continue to live in my house. I will soon have to have surgery on both knees, and having the stairlift means I can manage. Now I don’t need a bed downstairs, because I don’t like that. The stairlift from Handicare allows me to continue living at home. My house is my everything. My house is my home. Thank you Handicare!
If you have a story for Connect please email us! You can get in touch any time on connect.admin@handicare.com
Ms Lievens Ms Komen