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24 l June 2014


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Subcontracting gives you much more flexibility. We’re no longer putting the cart before the horse and doing things just to keep a big factory busy.”


Another lesson Dudderidge has learned over the last 25 years is the value of acquisitions and partnerships.


“You have to keep your eyes open for changes in the market and look out for new opportunities,” he explains. “We learned this when we acquired Novation in 2004. We thought keyboard controllers were a good direction to go in, and we had already identified Novation as a potential sister brand before they ran into trouble and we


bought them. We managed to save the brand by absorbing it into Focusrite and it has become very successful.”


Focusrite also designed the Pro Tools hardware controller, Control 24, which taught Dudderidge and his then- managing director, Simon Blackwood, to look beyond the UK for manufacturing in order to reduce costs.


“We took responsibility for establishing production, and, to stay within the parameters of the budget, we used a contract manufacturer in China,” he explains. “That was the first time we had manufactured anything there and it’s been a


huge success. Since 2002 we’ve made everything in China using trusted partners who give us great quality and service.” One might ask, “What about the UK?” Doesn’t he feel any responsibility for the demise of its manufacturing base? “No, because sadly the UK is not a country of contract manufacturers and China is,” he says. “During the early 1990s, when we first acquired Focusrite, we designed a new console based around Rupert Neve’s ISA110 mic pre and EQ module. They were obsoleted by technological changes, but also by the cost of British manufacturing, which was too expensive to allow us to


Hit-maker and kit-maker: Dudderidge with Sir George Martin, CBE, in 2001


compete effectively on the global stage. People simply couldn’t afford the high cost of producing stuff here.”


Although big consoles were what attracted Phil Dudderidge to Focusrite, the demise of that market allowed him to concentrate on outboard products and ultimately rebrand the company as an audio interface specialist.


“Being clear about your future direction is very important,” he explains. “Our contract with Digidesign for the Mbox precluded us from doing a USB interface at the time but said nothing about FireWire, so we developed a whole range of FireWire interfaces that I now call our first-generation phase. These came to market as the Mbox came to an end. By 2008, we had second-generation units using different FireWire chips, which were a big improvement. In 2009, we decided to become known as THE audio interface company. This allowed us to refocus our development resources and significantly push the company forward.” It certainly worked. Focusrite’s turnover has risen from £10 million in 2007 to £45 million this year. Not a bad result, given the economic climate.


“In the last five years we have also taken control of retail and distribution by doing things a bit differently,” Dudderidge adds. “The US market is the single largest market in the world, so we have established a US subsidiary to handle sales and marketing. We still have a distributor there but we have divided the role so that we are responsible for creating demand and they are responsible for fulfilling it.” Germany, too, has been given a shakeup, with Focusrite now selling direct to retailers and having a dedicated German sales


and marketing manager who is responsible for the retail channel. “My experience at Soundcraft taught me that selling to Americans in anything other than dollars doesn’t work because of problems with exchange rates. Luckily, our Chinese manufacturing model allows us to buy and sell in dollars. Whether sterling is up or down obviously makes a difference to the value of profits, but at least we no longer have the huge cost-based problem that we had when we were manufacturing in pounds.” Dudderidge adds that selling in euros in Europe is also important as this prevents exchange rates from bouncing prices around, enabling stable prices across the Continent. Having reflected on the positive lessons he has learned, is there anything he wishes he’d done differently?


“If you’d asked me that question six months after I bought Focusrite, I’d have said I should never have done it!” he says. “We didn’t make any money for the first five years, and I burned a lot of my own capital that I’d spent 15 years accumulating. By the mid-1990s things got quite scary and I had to remortgage my house. “Thankfully, we turned a bad decision into a good one by continually reinventing the company and recognising market trends. We’re still doing that with our RedNet series of networked products, which are moving us into the live sound and installation markets. It’s the same with Novation, which is not just about synthesisers and keyboard controllers anymore but also about grid controllers for electronic music production. We are clearly very proud of what Focusrite has achieved, but we don’t rest on our laurels.” Focusrite now employs over 100 people in the UK and is renowned for its high morale and low staff turnover. It has twice featured in The Sunday Times’ ‘Best 100 Small Companies to Work For’ list and puts great store on staff satisfaction. “Employees are what make a business and having that ‘best company’ recognition makes me very proud and tells me we are doing the right thing,” Dudderidge says. “Focusrite is a great place to work and the company I’d like to work for if I was an employee.”  www.focusrite.com





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