GEO FOCUS AUSTRALIA
>>> INDUSTRY INTERVIEW The RØDE Less Travelled
From new manufacturer to household name in just over two decades, Australia’s RØDE brand has gone from strength to strength. Here, the company’s marketing manager Scott Emerton describes its rise to prominence and future plans.
The basis of Rode was to marry Chinese-made capsules with Australian electronics. How did you come up with this idea? The early days for RØDE began in 1990. The recording industry was changing rapidly, and the release of relatively low-cost digital recorders opened up the need for high-quality microphones. At that time, the majority of
microphones came from Europe, and sold for thousands of dollars. [RØDE founder] Peter Freedman had found a Chinese microphone manufacturer that sold low-cost, low-quality studio microphones, but the heart of these microphones (the capsule) was relatively good. By grading and culling the transducers and adding high-quality electronics he was able to offer highly reliable microphones that could be sold at industry changing prices. This was the start of RØDE and it changed the industry.
Why bring manufacturing in-house when it’s potentially more profitable to outsource it? As RØDE started to produce more and more microphones, it became obvious to Peter that the only way to control quality, reduce costs and, most importantly, not have the destiny of the RØDE brand controlled by others, was to own the machinery and have the in-house
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techniques and IP required under his control. RØDE now has more than $22 million in manufacturing equipment and with a rise in off- shore competition and higher costs, this investment has proven to be a major strategic competitive advantage for the company.
How is the Australian pro-audio market unique? The Australian pro-audio industry has always been a difficult one for distributors and retailers, in that the costs of doing business here are so much higher than anywhere else in the world. Our wages are among the highest in the world, and it costs more to send a parcel from Sydney to Perth than it does from London to LA.
Online purchasing is also
becoming increasingly prevalent, and the current Australian government policy of allowing consumers to import items duty and tax free up to $1,000 has pushed more and more retailers out of the industry. This will have an impact where end-users find they have limited resources for advice and help in an ever-increasingly technically demanding world.
Has your location and the Australian culture informed your design decisions at all, such as moving into mics for film and DSLRs?
RØDE founder Peter Freedman
than the exception and with software the whole transaction is performed instantly via download. Dealers are still selling software, but they are usually handing over a key that then allows the end user to still access the program direct. Hardware will probably go this way as well with dealers taking the sale and manufacturers fulfilling the order. This is a much cleaner and more cost-effective logistics model, and one that RØDE is looking carefully at.
Being located in Australia has not had an impact on our decisions to produce any specific products. We are a multinational company and have been in the professional audio industry since 1967. We have a strong research and development team, and many outside collaborators who feed us information about where they see market opportunities. Peter Freedman heads ideation for new product development, and feels that he makes products that he himself would buy.
How have you seen technology purchasing change over the past few years? Technology is incredibly exciting at the moment, and the cost is getting lower and lower. As discussed above, online purchasing of software and hardware is become the norm rather
Have there been any recent changes in laws or regulations that have affected the industry on a local level? In recent years international laws regarding safety (CE, CCC, UL etc) as well as the removal of hazardous substances (RoHS) has dramatically effected most manufacturers. The financial cost of compliance is extremely high and is also highly time consuming. While these laws make for a safer product, and companies such as RØDE are large enough to not only comply, but have their own quality systems, start-ups are going to find it hard if not impossible to get into business. This is a very serious consequence of the modern regulated manufacturing world. In the long term it will stifle creativity and advances in our industry, which was founded on people with great ideas but who initially had limited resources.
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Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
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