EXCLUSIVE: Senior US Bose management have wielded a massive axe to their Australian operations by slashing senior staff, relocating their operations from the comfort of the Gold Coast back to Sydney, and stripping local management of responsibilities in Asia.
The move comes as Bose struggles in the US market however insiders are saying that the local cuts is not necessarily linked to the economic downturn around the world.
Three years ago senior Australian management of Bose chose to locate the head office of their Australian operation to Queensland with senior management including marketing relocating to the Sunshine State. This say Bose staff axed cost the Company money and resulted in staff being located “kilometres away from their main customers and retailers”
“It was more about what the staff wanted than what was good for the company,” they said.
Also impacting Bose is poor marketing in Australia and a product range that is expensive despite lacking in features.
Their mainstream Lifestyle Home Theatre systems have had no iPod capability. Instead, Bose sales staff try to sell customers a standalone Bose iPod player that has limited sound output and no way of connecting with a home theatre system.
Consumers buying a Bose home theatre system are unable to attach additional components from other manufacturers, and those using the Bose system for distributed audio are restricted to a Bose proprietary sound system that has limited capability.
The systems also had no wireless or Ethernet capability making it difficult to download content for playing.
As one Bose dealer said today “Bose is fast getting left behind. The big attraction four years ago was the Bose cube speakers and the quality of their audio output, these speakers appealed to women and we sold a lot of them because they had little if any competition.
Now everyone has them. Brands like Denon, Onkyo, and Marantz all have superior home theatre systems to the Bose system, which is getting harder to sell. They have also missed the iPod boom. While they have a great stand along iPod player it needs to be integrated or the base Lifestyle system needs an iPod attach capability,” they said.
“Pricing has also been an issue,” they added.
In Australia last year Bose products were selling at up to almost twice the price of the same US products despite the dollar being at $0.96 to the US dollar.
Both Dominique Waters The Managing Director of Bose Australia and Andrew Cronin, General Manager for Bose ,said that they could not comment on the issues . However, both of them did not deny the restricting of the Australian operations.
Both senior executives said that their marketing manager Jade Simpson would get back to us.
Shortly after refusing to comment Andrew Cronin came back with the following comment” Bose has restructured its operations in response to the decline of the global economy. These actions include centralising our business in Australia. We have transferred our Gold Coast operations to the Bose Sydney office”.
This decision supports our long-term strategy for the country, prepares us for the future and preserves our focus on research, technology, innovation and quality.
What he failed to respond to was why 3 years ago located to the Gold Coast when the “long term strategy was best suited by an operation in Sydney”.
Bose management who are known for their arrogance have refused to answer questions about the failure of their products to meet demands of the market or why the running of Asia was taken away from the Australian management team.
