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Who's who: Paul Friedel

Part of Paul Friedel's job as Diebold's new VP of Global Technology is to inject the company's traditional development process with an added dose of creativity. He's off to a good start.

February 15, 2004

Taking an idea from research to actual development may be one of the biggest challenges in the business world. 

Paul Friedel, Diebold's new vice president of Global Technology, knows it.

"My job is to make innovation succeed from the idea to the market. I want to show that a guy who is stamped 'research' can have good business insight," said the classically trained French scientist.

Friedel spent 22 years with Philips Research, working his way up to senior vice president, before joining Diebold in late 2002. Research and development were often kept separate at Philips, a model that Friedel said he found "limiting."

Research AND development

Friedel moved the research lab he headed from an isolated area near Paris to the site where the company's French sales force was stationed.

"I loved seeing the surprised eyes of the engineers I then sent in the field with the salesmen," he said. "They suddenly became aware of how a product sells itself. It led to significant changes in their design abilities, for the good. I am a believer that business and technology people should work shoulder-to-shoulder to envision and define the possible futures."

Paul Friedel

Emanuela Aureli, who represents Korn Ferry, the professional recruitment firm that lured Friedel away from Philips, said part of Friedel's approach is to "gather ideas from people at all different levels and cultures of a company before making his decision."

Indeed, Friedel's task at Diebold is to inject the company's traditional development process with an added dose of creativity. He evaluates which technologies should be applied to the ATM and to other Diebold products, now and in the future. He also manages the company's intellectual property, deciding which technologies to patent.

"There is a lot of technology out there, but if you don't have the right application and the right understanding of what it will bring to people -- Diebold's customers and their customers -- in the end, then there is not much value there," he said.

"Scientists don't always have a broad spectrum of experience, but Paul is an extremely well-rounded individual," Aureli said. "He is also one of the brightest people I've ever met. He'd never say it -- but he is."

All-around intellect

The previous four generations of Friedel's family on his father's side were scientists. His British mother is the sister-in-law of the late Sir Neville Mott, who won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976. At age 82, Friedel's father still publishes research papers. Foreign physics professors from around the world often visited the Friedel home.

The arts were not neglected despite the family's scientific bent. A fairly accomplished violinist, Friedel now has less time for music because of job-driven demands on his time. Also, the dry winter air in Diebold's headquarters of North Canton, Ohio endangers the Italian violin he inherited from his great-grandfather.

Another pursuit, cycling, is also suffering. "It is a dangerous sport in the U.S.," he said.

Friedel began cycling after losing a bet with some colleagues at Philips that a complex development project would be complete within 18 months.

"I lost the bet by one month. The terms of the bet were that the one who lost should have to cycle 300 miles from my factory to the Philips headquarters," he said. "I had to train for this and managed it in 17 hours over a weekend. The development team really enjoyed seeing the boss suffer a little."

Friedel is willing to go to nearly any lengths to indulge in his favorite hobby, sailing. "I am ready to stand up to any American vacation habits and leave at sea for three weeks," he said - though he checks e-mail every other day and leaves his telephone on.

"Both the bicycle and boat are some of the finest inventions of human kind for their use of physics and the sense of balance they radiate," he said. "They also give lots of time for thinking, which I believe is essential to take at regular intervals."
 
Friedel now spends a third of his time in Ohio -- dividing the rest between his home in Paris and travels around the world compiling information on new technologies. He stays in touch with his wife and three children largely via e-mail.

"In some ways it is easier to have more in-depth discussions that way, when writing and taking the time to carefully read responses," he said. "It is easier to get distracted when one is speaking."

Collaborative creativity

He has conducted three creativity workshops with Diebold staff, one in North Canton and others in Brazil and Italy. "I want to tap into the brains of all associates. I want everyone in the company to feel entitled to have a bright idea and to work on it," he said.

Chuck Somers, Diebold's vice president of Global Software, said the workshops and other Friedel initiatives are bringing "a fresh perspective" to Diebold's R&D, which is taking a more strategic direction.

"We want to engage in projects with good, sound business reasons behind them, while allowing for some of the more exciting future technologies," Somers said. "It's not about just looking at what the market needs in three, six, nine, 12 months; we're taking an outlook of three to five years."

Somers said some of his "best and brightest" engineers vie to work on projects directed by Friedel. "Engineers love these types of projects. It's almost a reward type of opportunity for them," he said.

Some of the efforts spearheaded by Friedel debuted at last November's Retail Delivery Conference in New Orleans, including a demonstration of Diebold's new smart client architecture, designed to manage customer relationships through multiple delivery channels, and display of three-dimensional ATM screen graphics.

Not all ideas will show up at ATMs or in other Diebold products such as electronic voting terminals or security systems in the short term, Friedel said. "When you test ideas, they may not be adopted at that point in time. But it's important to try to never forget and to revisit them occasionally."

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