Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/11/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Good morning everyone, The local paper has an article on the business page about what Herr Spichting has been saying about the future of Leica. Just a quick-and-dirty translation of the main points. The headline is "Leica will be making a profit in 2007" sub-head "Staff reduction and digital technologies: The camera manufacturer is planning a radical renewal" Spichting: " Our most important target has changed from short-term survival to medium and long-term successful repositioning" Spichting declined to comment on how many jobs are in danger, but mentioned that discussions are being held with the workers representative councel. Investor protection representatives demanded that Leica should concentrate on correcting the errors of the past. Leica didn't wake up to the realities of digital photography (directly translated : they slept through it) and were running a long way behind the market (and not catching up). Spichting admitted: "I must note that, in the past, Leica did not make sensible use of all the chances offered by digital technologies" Leica will now be strengthening their market position with new digital products. Strategic partnerships with other companies will be reinforced and expanded. A new advertising campaign will underline the distinctive features of the brand "Leica". Emphasis will also be laid on the "Sport Optics" division (binoculars). Leica will be creating an "employment and qualification group" (My definition: this is part of the social net to help relocate redundant employees, since the 80s this has been a part of most redundancy packages - the sequence runs: redundancy warning, discussions with the workers council, agreement on severance payments (based on years of employment, age, marital status, number of children etc.) and then seminars for outsourcing, re-education for other jobs, how to write job applications,and everything else involved with becoming unemployed - except giving them new jobs - I've been through it all nearly 3 years ago, the severance money was good, but the rest is a load of time consuming rubbish which is very profitable for the outsourcers who run it). Leica is expecting to reach an agreement with the workers reps some time in December (funny, they always do it just before Christmas) Although Leica had a Q1 and Q2 increase in turnover for he current financial year (1st April 2005 to 31st March 2006)Leica is still in the red. Income rose by 6.7% to 48M euro, the figures after tax after 6 months were still minus 4.6M euro. Leica employs 996 staff worldwide, 400 of these are in Solms.