We warmly welcome our new SME-member Tom Pelzer to the Dutch Chamber. Tom Pelzer works as an independent service designer and lives in Gothenburg.
What is your professional background? What does a service designer do?
I started out my career as an industrial designer, where I predominantly worked on (physical) products and spaces for clients such as HP, Coca Cola, Nike, and Philips Lighting (now Signify) in both North America and Europe. Along the way I got more attracted to the idea of working on digital solutions as well as the way services are created and offered to people.
As an independent service designer I help companies to better connect to their customers and users. This human-centered mindset aids in understanding their context (such as work environment, needs, desires, and pains) and to what extent the company’s offering fits into this context. In this way opportunity areas can be identified so that a company can improve their offering in such a way that it optimizes the value exchange between them and their customer and users. Choosing the right opportunities to pursue - and how to address them - is what sets companies apart from their competitors. This means ensuring a strategical match while taking into account aspects such as viability, feasibility, and usability.
Sometimes improving a company’s offering can be achieved by introducing a new - or better - way for customers and users to get access to the right (actionable) information, for example through a mobile app. Other times it is more about improving the way teams and departments within a company are organized and set up in order to improve customer support in certain steps in their journey.
This variety makes my work very dynamic, challenging, and relies heavily on collaboration.
Can you tell us how you ended up in Gothenburg?
My wife and I both lived in Sweden during our studies and enjoyed our time here. After having lived abroad in several countries we decided to move back to Europe and thought Sweden would be the ideal place for us. We found Gothenburg to have good opportunities for the both of us and have been living there ever since.
You’ve become an SME-member recently. What inspired you to take the step to becoming a member?
A few months ago I happened to come across some posts from the Dutch Chamber of Commerce on Linkedin and was a bit intrigued by some of the stories shared by new members. As I run my own consultancy company I thought it could provide an interesting opportunity to extend my professional network further as well as contributing to exchanging ideas with the other members and partners.
What are your expectations from your membership?
Besides extending my professional network, I think it’s always good to share experiences, ideas, and opportunities with other members. I’m sure that being a member will provide multiple events and opportunities to do so. I’m very much looking forward to getting to know the rest of the members. First up is the 'Tour de Gothenburg’! Anyone who is interested can always reach out to me.
/MN
I started out my career as an industrial designer, where I predominantly worked on (physical) products and spaces for clients such as HP, Coca Cola, Nike, and Philips Lighting (now Signify) in both North America and Europe. Along the way I got more attracted to the idea of working on digital solutions as well as the way services are created and offered to people.
As an independent service designer I help companies to better connect to their customers and users. This human-centered mindset aids in understanding their context (such as work environment, needs, desires, and pains) and to what extent the company’s offering fits into this context. In this way opportunity areas can be identified so that a company can improve their offering in such a way that it optimizes the value exchange between them and their customer and users. Choosing the right opportunities to pursue - and how to address them - is what sets companies apart from their competitors. This means ensuring a strategical match while taking into account aspects such as viability, feasibility, and usability.
Sometimes improving a company’s offering can be achieved by introducing a new - or better - way for customers and users to get access to the right (actionable) information, for example through a mobile app. Other times it is more about improving the way teams and departments within a company are organized and set up in order to improve customer support in certain steps in their journey.
This variety makes my work very dynamic, challenging, and relies heavily on collaboration.
Can you tell us how you ended up in Gothenburg?
My wife and I both lived in Sweden during our studies and enjoyed our time here. After having lived abroad in several countries we decided to move back to Europe and thought Sweden would be the ideal place for us. We found Gothenburg to have good opportunities for the both of us and have been living there ever since.
You’ve become an SME-member recently. What inspired you to take the step to becoming a member?
A few months ago I happened to come across some posts from the Dutch Chamber of Commerce on Linkedin and was a bit intrigued by some of the stories shared by new members. As I run my own consultancy company I thought it could provide an interesting opportunity to extend my professional network further as well as contributing to exchanging ideas with the other members and partners.
What are your expectations from your membership?
Besides extending my professional network, I think it’s always good to share experiences, ideas, and opportunities with other members. I’m sure that being a member will provide multiple events and opportunities to do so. I’m very much looking forward to getting to know the rest of the members. First up is the 'Tour de Gothenburg’! Anyone who is interested can always reach out to me.
/MN
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