The former AV Marketing Manager of Pioneer Australia who was among more than 15 people laid off by Pioneer Australia has said that he doubts whether the Company will survive in its present form and that he anticipates that the parent Company will be sold within 12 months.
In an effort to hide the mass sackings Pioneer Australia Communication Manager Michael Broadhurst has resorted to spin doctoring in an effort to hide the full truth behind the layoffs at Pioneer Electronics Australia.
In an email to ChannelNews he said after we had reported earlier this week that all Pioneer State Managers has been retrenched, “To clarify everything, Pioneer continues to operate with its own sales force, with sales managers for each state”. He also said that our story was totally inaccurate.
This is not the first time that Broadhurst has resorted stretching the truth about Pioneer and their problems. Last year he categorically denied a statement made by him despite ChannelNews being in possession of a recording of the conversation.
Earlier this week Broadhurst who also controls advertising expenditure for Pioneer called ChannelNews in an effort to find the identity of the person who had leaked the retrenchment details. He said at the time “What information do you have and who gave it to you. It will be in your best interest to tell us”.
He then asked whether the leak was via a female in Victoria which was an obvious reference to Renee Steine a former female member of the Pioneer communications team who was also retrenched. He has also refused to say how many staff Pioneeer Electronics had retrenched other that “It is insignificant and of no news value to ChannelNews or the retailers”.
Among senior executives retrenched by Pioneer Electronics Australia is Mark Anning the former AV Marketing Manager, Steve Johnson the Victorian National Sales Manager, Matt Husthouse the Queensland State Sales Manager and NSW State Manager Dan Thackeray.
According to Mark Anning the former AV Marketing Manager the Company has also axed their entire marketing team including up to 10 additional staff to the State Managers.
Speaking to ChannelNews Anning said “It was a major cutback of staff. They are just an engineering Company who have zigzagged from one direction to another. I doubt whether they will survive in their current form, they will be bought out. Their shares are down to $2.60 Australia and they are still bleeding. We never had the budgets to market the brand properly. At a corporate level they suffered because they acquired the NEC plasma production plants and then had to spend money fixing them up”.
He added “They have lost their display research and development team to Panasonic and now they are trying to go back into the Hi Fi market but unfortunately there has been little investment in this area. They are trying to catch up to the likes of Yamaha and this is going to be tough for them”.
He said “Marketing and budgets was the biggest problem locally. Despite having good technology they did not invest in telling anyone about it. They also struggled with where they wanted to be. One minute they want to be in the mass channel then they are retreating to the specialist channel. You cannot build up credibility and survive by taking this approach”.
In our earlier story “Pioneer OZ Axes State Managers Millions In Losses” we did report that Pioneer was now using sales agents to sell the Pioneer AV range into retailers. We were told this information by a senior Pioneer sales executive who had been retrenched.
Michael Broadhurst claims this is not true and in an email to SmartHouse he wrote in parts “To clarify everything, Pioneer continues to operate with its own sales force, with sales managers for each state……This does not mean that Pioneer has shut up its sales operations around the country.
added “It’s damaging and inaccurate to publish news informing the industry that we have outsourced our sales department. The departure of these few sales staff relates only to home electronics group”.
