www.prosoundnewseurope.com
July 2012 l 05
news UNITED KINGDOM
Allen & Heath MD Glenn Rogers reflects upon crowning export glories in the face of mounting global crises. Phil Ward reports
TO WIN a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in a Jubilee year has a warm glow of Horlicks to it, like Virginia Wade winning Wimbledon in 1977. No doubt the Cornish factory of Allen & Heath, which has picked up its second such gong in the category for International Trade, is festooned in bunting as commemorative mugs are handed out by tin miners’ children on penny farthings. For MD Glenn Rogers, though, the honour is a feather in a truly global cap because, this time, it represents British resilience to worldwide economic broadsides. “The export growth
recognised by the Award was achieved in the period 2008 to 2011,” he points out, “which anyone will instantly know was not an easy time. The secret behind it is our success with the iLive family, and the subsequent evolution of the iLive-T and GLD concepts.” Overseas revenue leaped by 64% during this time, which Rogers characterises as “beating the drum all over the world for excellence in British pro audio”. A winning enterprise in this category simply has to be based in the UK, and there are no other caveats regarding manufacturing locations, partnership agreements or the like. “As long as you’re creating trade and value for ‘Brand UK’, you’re eligible,” adds Rogers, who has been with Allen & Heath since 1983. “They look at three years’ worth of overseas performance, including the ratio between export and UK sales, and the kind of things you’ve invested in to drive that growth – all the things that go into making a business that’s there for the long run, rather than short-term opportunism.”
Mixing with royalty 64%
explains Rogers, “and that’s where they saw the potential to capitalise by acquiring the company. We’ve seen that investment come to fruition, with a great deal of support for this platform. Since then, of course, we’ve moved on to the GLD launch, which has also done extremely well.” iLive was Allen & Heath’s
response to the emerging digital market’s demand for flexible control, audio networking and application-specific configuration. It was a worldwide phenomenon, says Rogers. “The core markets of Europe and the US had great success, but even territories such as Indonesia, Australia and China latched onto the digital
Glenn Rogers: Beating the drum for British pro audio
The expansion has been
spread across all regions, with no particular strength – or weaknesses – reported from Northern or Southern Europe, Asia or the Americas. The real catalyst, says Rogers, has been iLive and the sustained development of the digital platform – not that the analogue business has evaporated. In fact, Allen & Heath’s long heritage in this field is contributing to a robust durability driven, Rogers believes, by its sheer friendliness, usability and highly visible familiarity.
“The ZED Series has done
remarkably well, alongside the good old workhorses like the Wizard3 and GL series. Nothing has dropped away: taken as a whole, analogue circuitry is still a bigger part of our business than digital circuitry. It’s the kind of mixing that does exactly what it says on the tin. As far as the DJ market is concerned, 2011 was tougher because the software-driven controller market really took off, making things difficult for the conventional hardware. But at the top end, where we are still a leader (with the Xone range),
the pro DJs still demand the high quality and high capability that we can provide.” Product development and R&D continue to represent the most significant investments, all of which is underpinned by a corporate association now four years old: D&M Holdings is also the home of Denon, Marantz, Calrec and several other consumer and professional brands. “We’d already launched iLive,”
Allen & Heath team at the launch of the GLD (“GL –Digital”) system on the eve of the NAMM show, January 2012
dimension to a portfolio already exploring the fallout from a digital explosion that has given the world the iPod, internet radio and all manner of network-based entertainment technology. “We had the same vision,” confirms Rogers, “and that’s why the partnership is so suitable. It’s a long-term view of how connectivity, user experience and user expectation of media is being shaped by digital technology, and you’ll see the same vision applied to Calrec and its broadcast- specific applications.” The seed of a digital project inside Allen & Heath was planted as far back as 1995, when it seemed to some that all mixing would be digital within five years. But, displaying a prudent conservatism of which Elizabeth II herself would be proud, the company has cautiously balanced every prerogative to arrive at this point: a true enterprise allowance. “It can easily go wrong when you make that kind of
Rise in Allen & Heath’s overseas revenue, 2008-2011
formula very early on. We really had to be on our game with training, because those users were not used to complex, digital systems. A lot of effort went into documentation, backup, advice and after-sales. We also had to overcome people’s fears that the digital sound was never going to live up to the analogue sound, so a hell of a lot of R&D went into that.” For D&M Holdings, Allen & Heath represents a live sound
technology leap,” Rogers reflects. “We’ve all seen cases when great technology has not been adopted, so you’ve got to make sure that customers can gain an affinity with what you’re trying to do. That early investment into iLive has really paid dividends, because we were able to demonstrate, above all, how people could adapt it to their needs. That flexibility is what helped to drive the sales along.”n
www.allen-heath.com
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