Harman to cut 650 jobs

Harman has announced it is to cut 650 jobs in the US and Europe and will close several offices in both territories. Korean electronics giant Samsung bought Harman for $8bn in November 2016.

In an official statement, David Glaubke, the director of Public Relations, Professional Solutions at HARMAN International said; The changes we announced this week are the culmination of a transformation that the Professional Solutions division has been undergoing for the last two years to better serve our customers, increase our competitiveness and accelerate new product innovations. We are now consolidating certain locations acquired through acquisitions over the years to leverage the R&D, engineering, design and manufacturing operations of our other divisions and speed up our time to market. We also are investing in a stronger IT infrastructure, supply chain and software-driven NPIs that will improve high-demand product availability and processes and resources for our customers, sales teams and distributors.

The changes we announced will impact 650 positions in the US and Europe (out of 3,700 Harman Pro employees worldwide) and will result in several facility closures over the next nine months to a year, including Elkhart, Indiana, South Jordan, Utah and a few smaller offices throughout Europe that came to Harman through a number of acquisitions over the last 10 years.

Following these transitions, we will enter a rebuilding mode, forming three Centers of Competency:

Northridge, California, for Acoustics;

Richardson, Texas, for Electronics, DSP and Video & Control

Aarhus, Denmark, for Lighting.

To provide an example of this refocus, consider a Mac Viper lighting product. A CoC for lighting will allow our lighting engineers to focus more on critical differentiating factors like light engines and optics, instead of also requiring them to develop motors, mechanical structure and other supporting elements. The job of converting these technologies into competitive products will be for our newly formed New Product Innovation (NPI) teams.

We will also redirect our investments to IT tools and platforms, to ensure our sales teams, distributors and reps have the tools and support they need to easily transact business. In addition, we are investing in Experience Centers in the US, and Europe, on top of the two that are already in Asia, for Harman and our partners to engage customers and demonstrate our leading solutions.

LINK:	http://www.inavateonthenet.net/news/article/harman-to-cut-650-jobs...
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