HARMAN Professional Solutions: interview with Ramesh Jayaraman

A: HARMAN Professional Solutions has a great heritage,
with the AV industry’s most iconic brands working together under a single division.
By bringing these diverse brands together we’ve also developed a market-leading
position that allows us to offer the most comprehensive range of Audio, Video,
Lighting and Control tech solutions for the enterprise and entertainment sectors.

Our brands include JBL for audio; AMX for control technology; Crown Audio
for amps; Martin for lighting and many more. Over the last 18 months in APAC, we
have focused on streamlining our operations to offer a solution from HARMAN Professional
that combines our brands and products into integrated solutions. People often
ask if our brands will be replaced by the HARMAN Professional name, but we have
no plans to do that. Our brands have huge loyalty among our customer base and
we intend to preserve that.

A: Samsung is very bullish on the future of Harman
Professional Solutions and its AV brands. The company sees an opportunity to
leverage our ability to sell into places where the addition of one of its
displays would offer customers a complete solution. That represents a huge
selling opportunity for both Samsung and Harman Professional Solutions.

Samsung sees real value in the brands of Harman Professional Solutions. And
we’ve undertaken significant restructuring in recent years that have seen huge
investments in our HARMAN Professional Solutions business. Samsung said during
its acquisition of HARMAN in 2017 that we will remain a separate company with
the same leadership – and that’s what’s happened. We get strong support from
Samsung and there is a positive outlook for us and our AV brands.

You can already see how the synergies between Samsung and HARMAN Professional
Solutions can work. For example, digital cinema screens integrated with JBL speakers, or the AMX Acendo Vibe conferencing sound bar, which is ideal for pairing
with a Samsung display. We believe the future holds huge opportunities for
HARMAN Professional Solutions and Samsung.

A: Our most important focus is the ‘customer first’
approach we’ve adopted. We have to solve problems for our customers, not just
try and sell them what we think they need. The AMX Acendo Vibe is a good
example of how we do that. A simple, plug-and-play system that enables meetings
to start when they need to. No fiddling around with wires or different connections.
It’s all incorporated in a single package.

For Asia Pacific, we have been optimizing our operations to give
ourselves the best foundation to build our solutions-based approach. Our new
regional headquarters in Singapore has been up-and-running for over 18 months and
we’ve doubled our workforce, bringing in many of the industry’s brightest
talents.

We’re also changing how we look at market segments, using what I call the
“inch-wide, mile-deep” approach. So if we target a particular segment – say
cinema – I want to be sure we have solutions for all kinds of cinemas in all
kinds of markets. That’s essential to developing a market-leading position.

Finally, we’re also looking to change how we get our products to market.
That means broadening our point of sale beyond musical instrument stores into
other retail locations and moving further into online retail. This is something
we’re doing in partnership with our distributors and we’re working on it right
now.

A: Definitely the AMX Acendo Vibe. That’s a great
product for homeworkers, small businesses and huddle spaces in larger
companies. It’s affordable, stylish and easy to use so it’s going to have
strong appeal across a wide customer base.

Also the JBL EON ONE, the all-in-one rechargeable PA system that is
highly portable and, again, easy to use. It’s perfect for musicians, events
companies, business speakers and others. As with the AMX Acendo Vibe, the
affordability and ease of use of the JBL EON ONE mean this product will have a
very broad appeal.

A: Our Experience
Centre in Singapore was
the first in this region and we are planning to open others in collaboration
with our partners. We have operational centers now in Vietnam, Malaysia,
Mongolia and Thailand with plans to open in Indonesia, Korea and Myanmar this
year. We want to offer customers a dedicated place where they can experience
our technology. At the Experience Centre we can give customers an immersive and
customized experience. We want to invite customers and industry-stakeholders to
visit our Experience Centre and see for themselves.

A: A trend that’s increasing is that businesses,
governments, venues etc., don’t want to invest large amounts of capex upfront. For
example, a company might not want to buy a laptop for $1,500 but they will pay
$70 a month to lease one. It’s the same with AV: organizations are saying “we
don’t want to pay $100,000 to upgrade our conference room, but for $500 a month
I’m happy to have an always-on meeting room”. So we are structuring ourselves
to be more agile in this respect. Our financing arm is developing new offerings
for customers, and that’s going to help us build even stronger partnerships
with them.

A: Audio, video, lighting and
control are now in the digital realm, but we still experience it in the analog,
physical world. Our vision is that HARMAN Professional Solutions becomes the market
leader in delivering an interface between our digital and physical worlds for
enterprise and entertainment locations.

We’ve also invested
heavily in software development, so as we progress you’ll see a stronger bond
between the software and hardware we’re producing. You’ll see systems integrate
intelligently together to create a seamless and simple experience for users and
audiences.

Finally, we want to
stay true to our ‘customer first’ approach to make it as easy as possible for
our customers to do business with us. We plan to continue bringing visionary
solutions to market quickly, and provide industry-leading levels of customer
and tech support.

HARMAN
(harman.com)
designs and engineers connected
products and solutions for
automakers, consumers, and enterprises worldwide, including connected car
systems, audio and visual products, enterprise automation solutions; and services supporting the Internet of Things. With
leading brands including AKG®,
Harman Kardon®, Infinity®,
JBL®,
Lexicon®,
Mark Levinson® and Revel®,
HARMAN is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where
they perform around the world. More than 50 million automobiles on the road
today are equipped with HARMAN audio and connected car systems. Our software services power billions of mobile
devices and systems that are connected, integrated and secure across all
platforms, from work and home to car and mobile. HARMAN has a workforce of
approximately 30,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In March 2017, HARMAN became a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.