STAMFORD, CT — Harman, purchased in an $8 billion deal that was announced last November and completed March 10, recently gave notice to 650 of its 3,700 Harman Pro employees that their jobs will be eliminated by June 2018 as the company continues its restructuring efforts to better serve customers and accelerate new product innovations.
The company also confirmed that two of its manufacturing operations — its Crown factory in Elkhart, IN and its facility in South Jordan, UT — will be phased out by mid-2018. A few smaller offices throughout Europe that came to Harman through a number of acquisitions over the last 10 years will also be shuttered, noted David Glaubke, a company spokesman.
“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,” Glaubke said.
“Following these transitions, we will enter a rebuilding mode,” Glaubke added, noting that Harman Professional will focus its efforts on production centers in Northridge, CA (audio), Richardson, TX (electronics, DSP, video and control) and Aarhus, Denmark (Lighting), each equipped with newly-formed teams devoted to product innovation.
Harman Professional’s brand portfolio includes AKG, AMX, BSS, Crown, dbx, DigiTech, JBL Professional, IDX, Lexicon, Martin Professional, Soundcraft, Studer and SVSI.
The rebuilding mode, Glaubke noted, includes the goal of creating CoC’s – “Centers of Competency.”
“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,” he said.
“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,” Glaubke continued. “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.”
Noting that Harman, as a company, has undergone similar changes in recent years, shifting from hardware to software development and adding high-tech jobs in the process, Glaubke added that “decisions like these are not easy to make.” Along with advance notification of the job cuts, the company is pledging to “do our best to mitigate the impact to our employees and their families.”
