Puncher – Perhaps in your case this
item was $20 but my point is that it doesn't cost B&O that much
more to produce an iPod dock in China than it does many other
manufacturers that charge ¼ of as much so B&O are actually
making more of a profit per item than them based on their name and
prestige that people buy for although build quality and sound quality
is only marginally better.
Look at my previous post about iPhone
and how economists have calculated that it would only cost $65 more
per iPhone to build them in America! It's a $400 phone for the top
end model so their profit would still be extremely high, especially
with the amount the are selling. With mass production, when you are
selling that many units, it's possible to make billions of profit for
the company.
Look at Braun's OralB electric
toothbrushes, even the cheaper models are made in Germany. The top
end ones cost less than the Philips SonicCare which are made in China
and they still manage to make a really good profit off of them.
Again my point is that B&O's only
way was not to outsource and release inferior goods for the masses
and ripping people off by making thousands of percents in profit. I
think their audio equipment that's made in Europe that costs
thousands is cheap in comparison to the BS8 and Beolit12 that cost
less than 1000 because even at those prices they are not worth it. If
it costs B&O say $20-50 to produce a BS8 or Beolit12 and they
sell it for $800 that is a HUGE profit margin and unjustified. Of
course it will make them money, way more than they need (but I guess
not more than the CEO, boardmembers and shareholders need ;-). This
is why I feel ripped off! If they are making a high quality hand
assembled, struer built unit for $10,000 built by people who get good
wages with a much lower profit margin percentage wise per unit, then
I feel like I'm getting a much much better deal out of it!
Moxxey and Folkdeejay – I might have
exaggerated by saying a couple of hundred years but being a
constitutional monarchy that is democratic through having a prime
minister along with a parliament and having labour unions since the
19th century is progress compared to most other countries.
There are many instances of worker uprising in that era, and the fact
that this is not even happening in China today is quite depressing
and shows how the government controls everything and everyone in the
country. It is a much more authoritarian rule, perhaps more like
Britain in the middle ages. The fact that people worked for measly
wages during Dickensian times is due to poverty, but there was also a
rising middle class during this time. In China and many developing
countries the separation between rich and poor today is perhaps
similar or worse in many ways to that time. They hardly have a middle
class. To top it off, Britain in the 19th century invented
so many things in use today. It was one of the greatest places of
invention during the industrial revolution. China's industrial
revolution however is a copycat one filled with people filling orders
for western (or Japanese) designed and engineered products.
On another note both my grandfather and
uncle were engineers in the Soviet Union working in factories that
dealt with manufacturing equipment for oil and gas extraction in
Baku. My mother was in HR at the biggest (and I think only at the
time) air conditioning factory in the USSR. She did a lot of
auditing. This was in the 1960s-1980s and my whole family got decent
living wages and so did the rest of the factory. The working
conditions were not as appalling as those in China, in fact they are
horrified when they see pictures of factories in China in comparison.
Yes they look a lot cleaner, tidier, perhaps more health and safety
in China but they also work a lot more like slaves with the hours
they work and the miniscule pay they get. The labour unions were
strong in the Soviet Union, everything was very bureaucratic. The
managers of the factory only got marginally better wages than my mom
or other workers and they lived a better life than the average
employees only thanks to favouritism, connections and certain bribes
(wine, cash, etc...). This was however, audited by my mother who
reported such violations and got these kind of people in trouble.
They tried to bribe her to keep her mouth shut as well but she did
not take this money, I guess you could call it internal affairs
within the company/factory. My point is that in China the factory
owners today live better than the Soviet president did (I know as I
met many of their children studying with me in London), these are the
people who buy the Rolls Royce's you guys talk about, and the factory
workers live much worse than most people in the USSR (not counting
people in the Gulag's who probably lived in similar conditions). Do
you really want to support such a system? Because I don't and I won't
invest my money into it!
TerryM – Excellent point! This is
another great strategy that B&O should have used. Their higher
end products are better than they ever were both SQ and design wise.
If they had marketed themselves better as a high end audio
manufacturer, brought out high end ancillaries and went to trade
shows, etc.. perhaps they wouldn't be in the pickle they are. Instead
they marketed themselves as a luxury brand based on designing cool
looking things for your house and now cheap little things for your
iPod...
Nickyg63 – Good point but I think she
would have closed them down anyways because they were not profitable
enough. My point about Maggy was that it was her and Reagan with
their neoliberalist ideals that liberalized trade, and paved the wave
for British companies to outsource. This combined with China's own
trade being liberalized in 1979 made it possible for companies to do
what they wanted. They didn't have a responsibility to only
manufacture in their own country and over the years more and more
companies were outsourcing to make a higher profit. In many ways it
was like “That companies making more profit than us because they
are outsourcing, let's go that route too.” So companies followed
each other like a herd until there was only a few cows left.
Protectionism was nearly abolished (it only exists in the EU in a few
key industries that are protected by the PDO (Protected Designation
of Origin) such as in Buffalo Mozzarello from Campagne, or Champagne
from Champagne, etc... but besides farming and a few other industries
little is subsidized. Companies felt that if they wanted to stay
competitive they needed to outsource as others were doing. This is
the wrong mentality though to just follow the pack and manufacture
for cheaper in order to stay afloat. Some companies such as Gensis
for amps, Sunspel for base-layer clothing, etc... managed to survive
and upmarket their goods. So today it's mostly only the higher end
products usually that are made in the UK still as they can charge
more thereby staying competitive.
KMA – My point is that B&O does
not own and operate the factory that they outsource to in China.
Therefore they cannot dictate working conditions and the quality
control will be lacking. This is exactly why nearly all professional
grade products are manufactured in developed countries in the
companies own factories that are operated by them with their own
employees that they trained themselves, so they can have a higher
level of quality control and therefore a higher quality of product.
This is another reason that the BS8 and Beolit 12 are not up to par
with other B&O products. One only has to look at them and feel
them to see this when comparing it. I think B&O has lowered their
own standards in order to “fill a gap” and “go with the flow of
other companies.” As many have mentioned on here: if they didn't
need the money so badly they wouldn't have done this, well doesn't
that tell you something in itself? That this was B&Os last resort
must tell you that they are reluctant about manufacturing there
themselves, that they feel themselves that those products would be
inferior to their standards. Why else would B&O manufacture their
own metals and plastics and hand assemble glorious $10,000 speakers?
Another point is that it's not about
whose hands produce it. The BS8 and Beolit 12 are not hand assembled
like their other Beosound products for one. They are extremely mass
produced which goes against most of the other B&O products and
this also contributes to the lower level of QC. They are not even
made by B&O but simply made by another company that is not a high
end audio manufacturer. When B&O produces their other products
each product is tested with special equipment by one person in one
room for example, this is not the case with mass production,
especially of the sort in China.
B&O might specify materials,
components, etc... but it does not mean that they will be to the
standard of the Struer/Czech produced ones. If everything was the
same it would be less noticeable, yet if they were producing it in
Struer or Czech they might have used different materials and
components that they produced themselves in their own factory in
Czech or Struer so I think it would have been different. Although my
point is that the fact that they released such a lower end product
and were OK with the quality shows that they really are in it simply
for the profit.
Bayerische – The Celsius H series
such as the H240 I have or the newer ones are professional laptops.
They have a 1920x1080 screen on a 15” laptop which is fairly
uncommon, magnesium alloy cover, spillproof keyboard, shock sensors,
fingerprint recognition, removable drives, etc... This was a laptop
built for graphic designers, architects, etc... and it has been the
most reliable and trustworthy computer I have ever owned. In fact
I've had if for about five years now and it still works like new.
In regards to Nokia – I have an E90
and love it. It is really outdated but I love the big keyboard and
dual screens. Way better than anything I have seen and also made in
Finland. I have dropped it about 1000 times and still works like new!
Can't seem to find a decent replacement for this phone with this kind
of build quality anywhere! Vertu and other such phones are out of my
price range! ;-)
