[Leica] Leica - new report this morning

[douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp)]

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.