ProAudio Review - September 2008 - (Page 43)

Behind QSC: the Scenes pretty deeply embedded in our DNA across the organization. We’ve got a lot of people at QSC that have been here a long time. They take great pride in the atmosphere and work environment that we have created, which is one physical manifestation of our values, and they are quite protective of it.” “These elements are everyone’s responsibility,” emphasizes Barry Andrews. “It doesn’t matter who you are within the company. Some of us are planners; others doers; others are front-line, back-line or support. Every single person in the QSC organization plays a significant role on a daily basis in supporting these elements.” “Innovators the world around are relentlessly ramping up technology used in audio, especially digital technology,” offers company co-founder and Chief Technical Officer Pat Quilter. “This allows us to provide more bang for the buck, but the real trick is to ensure that all this power is userfriendly and satisfying to use. While [such attention to detail] takes extra time in development, we’ve seen too many bad experiences where users are frustrated by poorly designed interfaces, preventing them from providing the level of service required by the event.” QSC’s four targeted market areas - concert, installation, portable entertainment and cinema – are considered complementary to one another, in terms of development, manufacturing and operating functions. “We are able to leverage our resources across the markets,” concedes John Andrews. “However, in the external-facing areas of market research, market communications, product management and sales, and relationship management, there is more separation. Cinema, for instance, has a fairly distinct set of customers and needs that really allows us to focus our efforts. “We have a separate business unit that is staffed with highly skilled people from the cinema industry. They live and breathe cinema, with 100 percent of their attention and efforts on those customers. The other three segments are not quite as distinct; there has always been a fair amount of smearing in the distribution channels but it seems to have gotten more smeared in the past few years. Sound companies often have install divisions; retailers often serve smaller regional sound companies they may have install divisions and they usually serve the portable entertainment customers. “In the past, we tried to serve these segments with focused channel managers and staff that were Carefully inspecting PCBs responsible not only for relationprior to final assembly ship and sales management, but also product management and the marketing efforts directed at those customers. Recently, we’ve reorganized that part of our business. Sales management is now done regionally, but we’ve maintained market focus in each of these areas for product management, applications support, marketing, etc. We think this will allow us to stay focused on delivering what customers need in each segment, but have a more coordinated and cleaner channel management infrastructure.” “We’re able to amortize basic R&D and infrastructure costs across the markets,” Barry Andrews confides. “But, we tailor product offerings and customer activities to meet the needs of each market area. Some products can be platformed — meaning different product variations share the same core; others may need to be significantly different. It is important to remember that all of these are pro-audio sound reinforcement markets - we don’t serve the recording or broadcast markets, nor are we distracted by consumer markets.” QSC’s product development is based on a stage-gated process. “Anybody in the organization can float an idea,” John Andrews says. “But to get serious consideration they need to flesh out the concept and present it for evaluation to our senior product-strategy group, which either kills it or green-lights it for further validation. A more in-depth feasibility study is conducted and the results presented to a group we call the Product Acceptance Committee, or PAC. PAC is made up of the most senior people from various disciplines across the organization, and acts as a board of directors in evaluating project-phase reviews. “Members from manufacturing, procurement, quality, marketing and technical services participate on the team, as well as the product manager for that area. The project team is responsible for making the business case, identifying the whole-product needs, identifying technical hurdles and other risks and creating the development plan. Once approved, they are Electronic production line at one of responsible for managing QSC’s three Costa Mesa-based facilities the development schedule, coordinating team project activities and meeting the cost, quality and product performance requirements that they promised at the early phase review. They are also responsible for coordinating manufacturing, marketing, and product launch activities. MASTER OF ITS BUSINESS DESTINY QSC has remained self-sustaining since its first days in business. It has never courted a takeover or external financing. But it has conQSC continues on page 44 ® www.proaudioreview.com September 2008 | ProAudio Review | 43 http://www.linearsystems.com http://www.proaudioreview.com

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ProAudio Review - September 2008 Contents Publisher’s Page: It's A Hard Drive World Broadcast News and New Products Lawo mc256 Digital Production Console Studio News and New Products Earthworks PM40 Piano Mic System Onkyo Professional PR-SC885 HDMI 1.3a Surround Sound Processor Developments and Trends: Instrument Microphones Benchmark Media DAC1 Pre Focal Twin6 Be Studio Reference Monitors Cascade FAT HEAD II Blumlein Package Studio Projects CS5 Microphone M-Audio Pulsar II Small-Diaphragm Condenser Live News and New Products JBL MRX512M Live Monitor QSC: Behind The Scenes Contracting News and New Products Primacoustic Broadway Professional Acoustic Solutions Buyer's Guide: Contracting Amplifiers/Mixers Buyer's Guide: Contracting Speakers Single Slice: pc muñoz "Chatter & Buzz"

ProAudio Review - September 2008

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