-- Los Angeles, CA- We went through a massive change last year, said Mohit Parasher, president of Harman Professional Solutions and executive vice president of Harman, speaking in early January inside the company's new Experience Center in Los Angeles. The understatement kicked off his first major sit-down with the press since Harman Pro began a radical corporate transformation in September 2017. During the months that followed, the company was largely mum as the process played out, but with changes now in place and the first results starting to come in, Parasher was ready to provide some insight into events of the past two years-a whirlwind that began when consumer electronics giant Samsung acquired all of Harman for $8 billion in November 2016.
We are already seeing the positive impact from the restructuring we completed last year, said Parasher. In fact, 2018 was a record year for orders booked. This was driven by our highest-ever year of audio product sales, as well as record growth in sales outside of the U.S. In addition to this record-setting revenue, we also drove strong growth in profitability. Put another way, he summarized, We saw good growth despite all the disruption.
And there was plenty of disruption. Harman Pro's changes affected all its brands-AKG, AMX, BSS, Crown, dbx, DigiTech, JBL Professional, IDX, Lexicon, Martin, Soundcraft, Studer and SVSI-with layoffs in the hundreds as it closed numerous offices and facilities worldwide, consolidating into three Centers of Competency, with acoustics headquartered in Harman Pro's existing facilities in Northridge, CA; electronics, DSP, and video and control tackled in AMX's home town of Richardson, TX; and lighting centered in Martin Professional's longtime base in Aarhus, Denmark.
While the effort may have appeared on the outside to be all about paring back, Parasher explained his thought process-and the considerable investment that followed, which ranged from IT outlay to reinventing facilities to hiring upwards of 350 new employees. Many people were skeptical, and I understand that, but we were very clear from day one-Samsung was very clear, we were very clear-that this is a business that we are going to invest in and that we are going to grow, he told Pro Sound News. We continue to invest. We have a plan and we are executing against it.
Bringing the various brands' teams together in physical proximity with the Centers of Competency was key to that strategy. The idea behind it was that we have a collection of many brands, but we never really got to leverage the power behind them the way we should because each brand operated in its own silo, he said. There was a huge potential to combine them all and put them in a platform [the Centers of Competency], where it is engineering-not only hardware but, more importantly, applications and software-sales and marketing, after-sales service, tech support, pre-sales. We did that in a very fast-paced way. People call it a restructure; I call it reconstruction.
The changes continue: new Experience Centers have been built around the globe to demonstrate the company's solutions for different markets, from recording to live sound to immersive retail environments. Elsewhere in Harman, a new company-wide IT platform handles sales forecasting up to raw materials procurement and supply chain, but also aims to break down silos between engineering teams. We created a big repository I'm proud of, with all [of our] engineering knowledge-terabytes and terabytes of knowledge-on one platform, said Parasher. Any engineer on any of our sites can access anything at any time and learn from each other.
Parasher likewise sees placing engineering teams under one roof as a learning opportunity, aiding cross-pollination between brands' technologies. Building on that, the various centers have standardized labs so that hardware and software engineering teams can collaborate with the same resources and equipment-a move he expects will provide fast ideation, with talent pools handing off work across time zones as the day progresses around the world.
Many of the company's new hires, notably in engineering and software, are from outside the pro audio industry; Parasher himself came to Harman Pro two years ago after a successful run on Harman's consumer electronics side. While consumer audio tech often adapts advancements from pro audio, Parasher wants to draw from the consumer world a bit-namely its design philosophies. There is a massive need out there for making things easy to use, easier to install, he said. Our industry is a little bit slower to adapt because the installs are bigger, [so] the decisions are larger; it's not like buying a $100 speaker or $200 headphone.
At the same time, he wants to rethink products' industrial design- Just because it's behind a rack doesn't mean it has to be ugly. You can make it good-looking at the same price. -and their ability to integrate with not only other Harman products, but the industry in general. In the old AMX world, we had our own programming language, our own way of doing things, so we were closed off to the world, he said. Make it open, discoverable, connectable. It's okay-customers will choose some competitors' products to connect with yours? It's fine. The customer should get the best product, the best choice, and that puts reverse pressure on us to be best-in-class in everything we do.
It may be a tall order, but that's nothing. We believe we have an opportunity as a team to transform the pro industry, said Parasher. We have an opportunity-and a responsibility, in a sense-because we have this portfolio of products, this great team, this great business channel, fantastic brands and a great owner like Samsung that is willing to invest, so there's no
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
On April 26, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik joined CNBC's Mor...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
27/04/2024
Two environmentally-focused groups are partnering to engage the unscripted TV world in finding better ways to address climate change. Reality of Change is an ec...
27/04/2024
Sarah Garcia has been promoted to weekend anchor at KTLM McAllen, Texas, known as Telemundo 40. Starting April 27, she will anchor Noticias Telemundo 40 weekend...
27/04/2024
CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League....
27/04/2024
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts received $35.4 million in compensation in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, according to a proxy statement filed by th...
27/04/2024
Art Happens Here With John Lithgow, which sees the actor study dance, ceramics, silk-screen printing and vocal jazz with students in Los Angeles, debuts on PBS ...
27/04/2024
Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?...
27/04/2024
Next up for the weekend binge at Catchy Comedy is Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Every weekend, Catchy Comedy features The Catchy Binge, a marathon of a classic sitcom....
26/04/2024
Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 kicks-off today with screenings in 5 theaters in Mexico City and the opening-night film, FRIDA, directed by Carla Guti rrez...
26/04/2024
[Editor's Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women d...
26/04/2024
Once again this year, SGL Carbon opened its doors to interested children and young people. On the occasion of the German Girls and Boys Day, which took place on...
26/04/2024
Orders1 of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x
Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%,...
26/04/2024
Five Considerations For Communications Modernization In The 21st Century
In the digital-enabled battlespace, the Joint Force needs to shoot, move and communica...
26/04/2024
CBS Sports has launched Champions League as a new, 24-hour streaming channel that will serve as the year-round destination for nonstop highlights of the UEFA ...
26/04/2024
Despite tough competition in the streaming space, Roku reported solid results in Q1 2024, beating revenue expectations, with total net revenue up 19% YoY to $88...
26/04/2024
LONDON AND TORONTO Pinewood Toronto Studios has appointed Sarah Farrell as general manager of the Studios in downtown Toronto....
26/04/2024
Quantum to Offer Advanced Filesharing Technology and Performance in StorNext and...
26/04/2024
FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2024 entries and introduces new Emerging Talen...
26/04/2024
Picture Shop Announces Chris Evans as Head of Unscripted
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
Picture Shop announced Chris Evans will lead Unscripte...
26/04/2024
Participate in a Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this survey,...
26/04/2024
Toy maker Mattel said it is working with Samsung to launch its first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels later this year....
26/04/2024
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) said it named Marty Moe as president....
26/04/2024
Ron Howard is the director on Jim Henson Idea Man, a documentary that premieres on Disney Plus May 31. Henson of course created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big...
26/04/2024
The ice continues to melt under the regional sports network business as the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League have made a long-term deal to broadcast...
26/04/2024
Heading into the upfronts, Warner Bros. Discovery said it launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertiser can use for converged, targeted advertising camp...
26/04/2024
CBS has renewed the drama The Equalizer, which will see season five on in 2024-2025. Queen Latifah stars....
26/04/2024
The CW has entered into an exclusive multiyear broadcast partnership for the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Teen USA Pageant. The 73rd Miss USA Pageant will air ...
26/04/2024
Fuse Media isn't mincing words in a campaign urging its young viewers to register and participate in the 2024 elections....
26/04/2024
Dead Boy Detectives, a series from Neil Gaiman about a detective agency staffed by ghosts, debuts on Netflix April 25. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri are in t...
26/04/2024
The Story Collective has gradually repurposed the former Mortlake Brewery to include production offices, workshops and sound stages
By Matthew Corrigan
Publi...
26/04/2024
Perkett joins the company following a 25 year career in product management, product marketing, engineering and user experience (UX) across multiple industries
...
26/04/2024
Teradek, the industry leader in wireless video transmitters and receivers, announced today the launch of new Bolt 6 LT 750 and Bolt 6 Monitor Module 750 RX with...
26/04/2024
NEW YORK Amagi has appointed Richard Perkett chief product officer (CPO)....
26/04/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has announced the results of the 2024 NAB Radio and Television Board of Directors elections. The...
26/04/2024
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. & NEW YORK Mattel has announced a deal to launch its first three 24/7 free ad supported streaming (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus, Samsung...
26/04/2024
PORTLAND, Maine Viewers here can now receive the NextGen TV signals of five local stations with the launch of ATSC 3.0 service from host station WPFO, which is ...
-- Los Angeles, CA- We went through a massive change last year, said Mohit Parasher, president of Harman Professional Solutions and executive vice president of Harman, speaking in early January inside the company's new Experience Center in Los Angeles. The understatement kicked off his first major sit-down with the press since Harman Pro began a radical corporate transformation in September 2017. During the months that followed, the company was largely mum as the process played out, but with changes now in place and the first results starting to come in, Parasher was ready to provide some insight into events of the past two years-a whirlwind that began when consumer electronics giant Samsung acquired all of Harman for $8 billion in November 2016.
