As you will know, the Phenom™ personal electron microscope is unlike any other FEI product. It is a tool more suited to routine and repetitive use, unlike FEI's main product portfolio of highly complex and high-value research equipment. Phenom requires a marketing, sales and service organization that will reflect this difference. Marketing and selling this type of product from within the FEI Corporate structure was to be a challenge from the start of the Phenom project due to this 'conflict of interests'.
A specialist network of Sales Partners has been created to enable Phenom to be sold successfully into a wide range of markets with a diverse customer base. This has allowed the necessary direct-sales approach in conjunction with a depot-style service facility operated by the manufacturers of Phenom, NTS-Group. This has provided the Phenom business with a great deal of flexibility.
NTS-Group and FEI have been working together on the Phenom project since it's inception, and NTS have provided their design and engineering expertise to help make Phenom the successful product it is today. NTS-Group are therefore a logical new home for Phenom with FEI retaining an minority interest in the business going forward. A new entity has been created within the NTS-Group and will be known as Phenom-World BV. We anticipate that this change will give the Phenom business the flexibility it needs to become more successful in the future.
Operating from Eindhoven in The Netherlands, Phenom-World BV took over all marketing, product management, sales and service activities with regard to the Phenom product as of Friday 23rd of October 2009.
