Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/09/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>From: "Ted Grant" <tedgrant98@hotmail.com> >Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 04:52:58 PDT >Subject: Re: [Leica] Was life after..Swiss management? > Dominique wrote: > with a new swiss director appointed by the swiss holding in order to make sweeping changes.>>>> > > >Dominique, > I guess a dumb question would be: What does this say about the quality o= f things organized and run by the Swiss? > It does seem over the past two years we have seen a number of complaints = on the quality control, not that it's a major factor, it has nonetheless bee= n a thorny subject at times. So does the "Swiss driven management"=20 equate to the "WHAT APPEARS TO BE NOT THE QUALITY CONTROL OF THE OLD DAYS= " ? > A passing question as I try to cope with the heat, humidity and damn cold air conditioning of the Main Press Centre in KL. :) > >ted Reply : Ted, I quite agree with you on the QC in the recent years. In 199= 2 I bought a new elmarit M-90 which was unable to focus till infinity ! The= y replaced it a few days later. Nevertheless the swiss director, Bruno Frey, did a good job but in 1991 h= e disagreed with the swiss holding on the future of Leica.He wanted to be independent from Wild by a leveraged buy out. Wild refused and prefered t= o keep the control. A new Chairman of the Board, a german one, Klaus-Dieter Hofmann, was appointed in order to transform Leica into a public company.= He "resigned" some months ago. Personally I am inclined to admire the swiss-german staff till to-day.The= y would have said : we give up ! Instead of falling in the easiness (see Ang=E9nieux in France who, after bankrupcy, abandoned the consumer goods), they chose to fight, like Siegfried, against the japanese dragoon with ups and downs.Hats off ! Dominique