The world-renowned establishment is known to engineer and manufacture audio, video, lighting and control products for entertainment and enterprise markets. With leading brands under its umbrella, it delivers powerful, innovative and reliable solutions. TheatreWorld brings to you an exclusive interaction with Amar G Subash, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific for Harman Professional Solutions.
What is the business sense or approach that drives HARMAN according to you?
Amar: HARMAN looks at the business from two angles, one is country specific growth, country specific strategies that we need to drive; the other angle is the product and portfolio angle. We try to maximise the potential in every single market, and we also try to maximise the potential of the HARMAN portfolio in all the segments that we work in.
The HARMAN portfolio can be broadly classified within audio, video and lighting. Within audio we have installs, cinema, tour, retail and then we have JBL entertainment. We have sub-verticals within the audio segment. In the video we have AMX brand and lighting we have Martin. We try to look at every market from that lens.
How has the brand managed to stand out bright amongst its competitors?
Amar: For us, Covid was a very tough period. HARMAN continued to invest in R&D and bring out new products. The last three years we probably had the most launches in our history. We refreshed the complete retail range, portable range, tour range and launched a number of products in this category. Now we are working to refresh our install range. As HARMAN, we have solidified our position during the pandemic and as we come out of the pandemic, we have come out in a very strong way.
How are cinema theatre accepting HARMAN as a brand and its new installs in this post pandemic period?
Amar: The cinema market generally is picking up; countries which have stronger local content are in a way coming up faster. Overall, I would say, the sentiment altered. The trends are definitely looking up.
What is your mission and vision for HARMAN as its Vice President and General Manager? How has your leadership role announced earlier this year facilitated in the same?
Amar: It has been a great journey and experience leading the business; I have been with HARMAN for 6 years started with finance and then sales and now moving on to the leadership role for the region. For me the role has been quite a natural progression because I was always very familiar with the business. Now it’s about focusing on the complete HARMAN portfolio, focus on all of our markets in the region.
How has the ratio of HARMAN’s business in cinema and noncinema segments changed in India over a period of years? How importance is cinema in its overall business today?
Amar: Cinema in India for HARMAN is a nexus of 10 per cent of our total business. It is a very important segment for us, firstly because we’ve historically been a cinema brand. We are innovating on the product side and continue to have it at our core strategy. In the cinema space we have installs where HARMAN is installed in more than 60 per cent of cinemas. It gives us a strong credibility in the rest of the business as well. If we look at installs, I think it is a very strong reference for us as to the HARMAN strength in the audio, video and lighting portfolio, for us it is a very important vertical. As we are participating here in Bangkok, we have produced a strong roadmap for the future in terms of new products. We are quite committed to the cinema vertical and it is very important for us in India for sure.
Can you throw some light on HARMAN’s latest offerings in India and the APAC region?
Amar: As I said, we have launched a number of new products on the retail side and on the tour side. Specifically for cinema, we don’t have a new offering as of 2022, but in 2023 we hope to launch some new products especially around the DSP side. We expect 2023 to be a strong year for the DSP side. But our core portfolio in cinema is very strong as we’ve got the speakers, amplifiers, CPi2000 processor, all of them are well established and are doing very well in the market.
What is HARMAN’s and particularly your approach towards innovation?
Amar: HARMAN’s approach to innovation is to look at standardisation, more and more common platforms as we look at the future. We are investing in network audio; we are using a standard base approach. We are also looking at unifying some of video and audio platforms, from a DSP control standpoint. You see that the overall architecture as it is emerging it looks more and more unified and you’ll be able to control and manage a number of HARMAN products, whether it be in the video or audio space, all under a similar architecture. It is a very exciting direction we are taking.
Could you shed light on the Samsung LED market?
Amar: The Samsung LED market’ launch was quite healthy. We have our HARMAN Sound Solutions which are complimentary to them and they are very much part of our active portfolio. After that we had covid, and things have since been dull. Now we have to see how the market comes back around the LED screens.
How do you perceive the Indian market against the other markets?
Amar: The biggest strength and the difference is the strong regional content we (India) have; India is not just limited to Hindi movies, it’s also the regional movies now and all of them are producing blockbusters now. The variety is where we see the strength and I also believe that the growth of Indian cinema market is going to be driven by this variety in the content and production that we have. I am very excited and positive about it.