Seit März 2017 ist die US-amerikanische Audio- und Elektronikgruppe Harman Industries eine hundertprozentige Tochter von Samsung. Diese Woche wurden nun die ersten Kollateralschäden bekannt – rund 650 Mitarbeiter der Pro Sultions Division sollen entlassen werden.
„Die angekündigten Maßnahmen sind ein Resultat der Transformation, der sich die Professional Solutions Division seit zwei Jahren unterzieht“, erklärt David Glaubke, Harman Director of Public Relations, in einem offiziellen Statement. Ziel der drastischen Maßnahmen sei es, die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit zu erhöhen und neue Produkt-Innovationen voranzutreiben.
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Von den Schließungen sind u. a. die Büros in Indiana, Utah und mehrere kleine Standorte in Europa betroffen. „Wir konsolidieren bestimmte Standorte, die über die Jahre durch Aufkäufe erworben wurden, um die Aktionen in den Bereichen R&D, Engineering, Design und Produktion unserer anderen Divisions in Schwung zu bringen und unsere Reaktionszeit im Markt zu verkürzen.“ Die betroffenen Mitarbeiter sollen bereits informiert worden sein.
Wie PSNEurope mittlerweile von einem Harman-Sprecher erfahren hat, sollen keine Marken aus dem Portfolio gestrichen werden. Harman wird außerdem auch in Zukunft ein unabhängiges Unternehmen bleiben und nicht in Samsung übergehen.
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:
o Northridge, California, for Acoustics;
o Richardson, Texas, for Electronics, DSP and Video & Control; and
o Aarhus, Denmark, for Lighting.
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.
Still, I want to emphasize that decisions like this, while necessary, are not easy to make. We have given our employees advance notification of the changes we will make over the next year to assist with the transition and will do our best to mitigate the impact to our employees and their families. Importantly, we also will ensure that the process is completely seamless for our customers.
We are very excited about the future of HARMAN Professional Solutions and believe that, with these changes, we are now aligned and structured to serve our customers better and to return to stronger profitable growth.
