IBE Feature | Senior Executive Interview


Any areas you’re thinking of moving into or spaces you’re leaving?


“No, I don’t think so. I think what we can probably do better is bring in more focus on some areas. The product portfolio is already so rich and so broad that bringing new products in there is not something that we feel we need to do right now.


There are no products we are scaling back yet. It may happen, as we work through our strategic roadmap planning exercise which we do every year but I’d prefer not to speculate on any areas which we might fi nd us backing away or de-focusing because that would just cause alarm in the markets.


But it’s something we will continue to review every year. It’s generally known in the industry, if you have a product that is fourth or fi fth ranked in the market place it’s very unlikely to make money. But on the other hand, some of these products that may not be recognised as a leader in the point product category can actually be very important as part of a total solution, so there are criteria we would assess as to whether or not we would move forward and carry on investing in certain products or not.”


Have you experienced a contraction of staff or loss of personnel?


“As far as our customers are concerned they will not notice any changes. There may be some changes further back in the supply chain for example, as we do maybe more outsourcing or something. But in terms of the part of the organisation that our customers see, our sales, our services, our marketing, our product people, we are not expecting to see any contractions there.”


And how is the company doing overall?


“Europe has really started to perform in the last year to 18 months, it went through a fairly rocky period a couple of years ago so we’re pleased with the performance coming out of Europe. The developing countries continue to yield a lot of opportunities, there


Richard Scott


In this position, Scott leads sales and services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA) and Asia Pacifi c (APAC) regions. Scott brings to his role more than 25 years in the industry, an exceptional record of accomplishments and a well-established intimacy with the broadcast customer base.


Before joining Harris, Scott was senior vice president, systems and technology services, EMEA, at Ascent Media, one of the world’s largest broadcast systems integrators. While with Ascent Media, Scott led the expansion of a systems integration business into EMEA. Prior to that, he spent fi ve years as vice president and managing director of EMEA for Pinnacle Systems, seven years as director at Sony Corporation and eight years as technical director at Panasonic.


are parts of South-East Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar is opening up - so those are areas we are doing business for the fi rst time. North America is starting to look like we’re in a recovery there too. It’s been a fairly challenging market, fairly competitive with fairly fl at growth, sort of 2 or 3% growth in the market, but it’s showing real signs of uplift.


Eastern Europe continues to, especially in areas like the headend business which was new to Harris a couple of years ago, we’ve secured a number of major wins in Eastern Europe so that continues to be a fast growth rate for us.”


Are there any trends you’ve noticed rising?


“At NAB we’re showing for the fi rst time our new IP-based routing technology, a world fi rst in the industry offered on our Platinum platform (the Platinum IP3), which is traditionally video and audio. We have now added the IP layer, which allows broadcasters to plan a migration away from baseband and conventional video into an IP and IT space. Recognising that they can’t just move from in one go to all IP, this technology allows them to plan for a hybrid operation for a good number of years. That’s probably one of the most important strategic products for us at the show.”


ibeconnects.com | May/June 2013


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