The Battery Packs Powering CES 2013 Trends

This week, Las Vegas is the gadget mecca of the world, as the globe’s biggest consumer electronics brands showcase their next-generation products at CES 2013.  Palladium Energy’s experts are on-hand to check out the lithium technology driving many of this year’s trends.

Smartphones

CES is full of smartphones boasting higher resolutions and screens up to 6.1 inches.  Larger screens and more pixels require powerful lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, and this year battery packs measured up to 4,000 mAh (more from the Las Vegas Review Journal).

Moreover, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are challenging battery pack engineers with future designs, like this bendable screen prototype from Samsung, which will require flexible li-ion battery packs.

Televisions

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough of this year’s CES show is the emergence of Ultra High Definition (4K) TV’s, which is powered by the same technology that’s been used in movie theaters for the past few years.  As Eric Savitz from Forbes points out, these TV’s are growing in size with the smallest Samsung 4K TV coming in at 60 inches!

Like the new generation of smartphones, these larger and higher definition TV’s require reliable power supply units (PSUs), which Palladium Energy manufactures in our Brazil facility for some of the largest TV OEMs.

While there currently isn’t any content available to watch on 4K TVs, it’s safe to say we’ll be watching the Super Bowl on these impressive screens in less than 10 years.

PC’s and Tablets

In 2012, ultrabooks stole the show as the emerging PC technology.  This year ultrabooks are touting 13-hour battery life and are taking on a new form as convertible devices that transform into tablets.  Convertible ultrabooks are thin, lightweight and have touchscreen displays that can be turned and flipped to cover the keyboard. The line between PC’s and tablets becomes even blurrier with touch screen laptops, like this Sony VIAO T15.

Li-ion technology is keeping pace as PC’s and tablets miniaturize and morph into multi-functional devices.  Li-ion battery packs are lighter and can be engineered to fit small devices; moreover, these battery packs have a slow loss of life, enabling PC’s and tablets to meet consumer demand for all-day battery power.

With nearly four decades of experience producing portable battery packs that optimize performance, safety, reliability, time-to-market and cost, Palladium is well positioned to help manufacturers keep pace with the $1 trillion consumer electronics market. If your company needs a custom power solution for its next-generation consumer electronics device, contact us today!  See you all next year at CES 2014!

– Rebecca Kritzman, director of global marketing

Q&A: Anson Martin, VP Worldwide Sales & Marketing

An Inside Look at Palladium Energy’s Customer Satisfaction Efforts

We sat down with Palladium Energy’s vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, Anson Martin, to bring you an inside-look at our company’s customer satisfaction philosophy and scoring process.   

 

 

What is Palladium Energy’s customer satisfaction philosophy?

We’ve used different customer satisfaction philosophies and survey techniques before—but we now use Net Promoter System—based on the book The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld. Used by the world’s largest brands (including some of our customers), this simplistic methodology uses only two questions, keeping the burden on our customer low.

• On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend Palladium Energy to a friend or colleague?
• One follow-up question is then asked based on scale of response.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a single number that can be tracked from week to week and month to month, just like net profit.

How long has this been implemented at Palladium?

We started to implement surveys, analyze the data and NPS in July 2010. It is now becoming ingrained in our organization—and is becoming part of a system rather than just a score.

What’s your end goal?

We don’t want to merely satisfy our lithium battery pack customers. We want EVERY customer to be delighted.

• Delighted with our service.
• Delighted with our capabilities cradle to grave throughout our operations.
• Delighted with our end products—lithium battery packs we produce globally and power supplies and other modules we manufacture in Brazil.

What’s a good NPS score?

The average NPS score for North American companies is 5 to 10% range—which is considered a terrible score. Most efficient growth engines notorious for delighting customers—Amazon, Harley-Davidson, Vanguard and Dell—operate at 50 to 80% NPS (according to the book The Ultimate Question). We are committed to operate at the 50-80% NPS level by taking immediate action on customer feedback, closing the feedback loop internally and externally and working with our global talent to ensure engagement.

What do Palladium’s customers value?

Since the inception of our NPS program in 2010, our customers consistently value these four aspects of our business:

• Communications/Responsiveness
• Technology & Engineering Expertise
• Product Quality
• Logistics support

What needs to be improved?

As with any business, there is always room for improvement. Below are some processes we’re implementing to improve the way we do business with our customers:

• Streamlined account management and New Product Introduction (NPI) processes and procedures—to enhance communications and set better expectations on all key deliverables, from cradle to grave
• Investing in systems to help more effectively and efficiently communicate and deliver products to our customers
• Becoming more flexible by innovating strategic sourcing programs to reduce time to market and overall lead times for our  customers’ products

How are you gauging success?

We’re gauging success in several ways:

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS): Tracking our global score, constantly analyzing feedback and putting strategies in place to improve customer satisfaction. We’re in field 2 times per year—Q1 and Q4.
2. Internal engagement: A lot of effort is being made to educate our global talent in China, Brazil, Taiwan, Korea, India, Europe and the United States. We are creating an environment that will foster a cultural transformation. Our people are key to making customer satisfaction a success—and on the flip side, making sure they are delighted working at Palladium as well.
3. Accountability: As a result of these efforts, all NPS goals and objectives are tied to performance management—globally. Meaning everyone is accountable throughout the entire organization around this effort.

Any parting comments?

As a leading battery pack manufacturer, we are 100% committed to customer satisfactions efforts in order to delight our customers—and have fun while doing so. We have the intelligence gathering/analysis, people and strategies in place to make this happen for our global business—In the US, China,  Brazil, Taiwan, India, Korea and Europe.

2012: Let’s Get It Started

Each New Year brings new organizational goals for growth, customer satisfaction and product diversity.  With a talented team of employees, Palladium Energy is poised for another great year of success in the lithium battery pack industry.  Our leadership sat down to give you a sneak peek of what 2012 has in store for our company:

A look back at 2011…

As we close another year at Palladium Energy, we wanted to reflect upon our successes in 2011. From forming a strategic alliance with Trojan Battery to winning awards to growing by double digits, we’ve had an exciting year! Check out our latest video, starring Palladium’s own team members. Happy Holidays!

A Strategic Alliance to Further Power the World with Green Technology

Good morning!  Today I’m blogging from the tradeshow floor at Battery Power 2011, to share some exciting news with our valued customers, prospects and partners.

The Palladium Energy sales and marketing team at Battery Power 2011 this morning.

Prior to this morning’s keynote presentation, our company had the opportunity to make a special announcement about Palladium’s commitment to powering the world with lithium-based, green technologies by expanding into existing and emerging markets.

We are pleased to unveil a strategic alliance with Trojan Battery Company, the world’s leading manufacturer of lead-acid deep-cycle batteries.  The new partnership will offer Trojan’s customers lithium-based solutions under the Trojan brand in key markets which include renewable energy, golf, transportation, floor machine, aerial work platform, marine and recreational vehicles.

I’m most excited about the opportunities this partnership provides for Palladium to play a larger role in the renewable energy market which includes various smart grid applications like smart meters, routers and sun and wind storage.  Lithium, traditionally the preferred technology for many portable and back-up applications due to inherent fit, form, function and green characteristics, has long been regarded as an environmentally-friendly, green technology—a requirement for the renewable energy market.

The world’s leading smart meter manufacturers already trust Palladium’s smart grid power solutions, but this partnership will eventually catapult our company into medium and large format applications like the storing the sun and wind, allowing us to have an even larger role in powering the world with green technology.

You can click here to read today’s press release.  Hope to see some of our readers on the tradeshow floor today (we’re at booth #208) to discuss our big news and exciting future!

– Art Salyer, president and chief executive officer