SPECIALISTS IN SOUND After a couple of difficult years shared by most other Italian companies, the future looks bright for audio systems specialist ASK, as Barbara Rossi finds out from Mr Bianchi, the company’s business development manager.
A
SK was established by three smallmedium companies cooperating with each other: Sipe, Autosonik and Zendar. Initially the link between the three was of a strictly commercial nature, but then in the 1990s, at the request of common clients, as well as thanks to the vision of the then two CEOs, Mr Tontini and Mr Paterlini, the companies decided to reinforce their collaboration and unify their strengths, thus forming a single group. “This is what has generated the unusual combination of different product lines, which although belonging to the “infotainement” area, are not contiguous. In fact, we are specialised in both transmission (radio frequency antennas and wires) and audio systems,” explains Mr Bianchi. “Over the years these two divisions have shared resources in terms of management and basic structure, but they have also become strongly specialised and have put down firm roots where they could better develop thanks to the availability of specialists and know-how, with audio having found a home in Ancona (central Italy), DPS/electronics in Germany, and antennas in Reggio Emilia (northern Italy). We can proudly say that today ASK is among the very top companies specialised in top performance audio systems design and manufacturing, which it completely develops in-house for the audio sector 232 Industry Europe
(loudspeaker), as well as for electronics and proprietary algorithm-based sound processing software (DSP).” An open and flexible business model has allowed the company to reach an excellent international position in the top automotive sound system field - for instance they have collaborated with the biggest worldwide Hi Fi and automotive companies, leading Companies at international levels for both auto and home products – while at the same time not losing sight of new markets and technologies. ASK is fully aware of the know-how and added value that it can offer to partners, or even competitors, and it is ready to build synergies able to bring economic advantages to both parties, but first and foremost to the final client. Important local partnerships have been set up with universities: Parma for acoustics, Ancona for electronics and Florence for radio frequencies; ASK also collaborates with Chinese universities such as Xian and Nanjing. “In some cases, ASK has established a strong and direct presence in local markets, those where industrial investments are prevalent – for instance Brazil, where we are market leaders, and China where with our two sites we are important players – while in other settings we collaborate with local partners, as we do for instance in India where for some time now
we have been supplying clients, achieving a presence on the transmission market currently covering 80 per cent of local manufacturers. Furthermore, in 2012, we re-established our presence in the USA (Detroit), while we can say that our strategy of production localisation undergoes a continuous analysis and is re-defined every two to three years. ASK has always viewed emerging market countries not merely as a potential for low cost production, but also as a source of skilled human resources (engineers in particular); this is exemplified by the very advanced lines for the production of high transmission data wires used for video and general data (HSD).” Important investments have also been made in China, so as to support the growth of the Asian market, and these will guarantee ASK the Hi Tech status bestowed by Chinese Government Bodies in 2013. Our Chinese investments have amounted to a new plant in the north of the country, as well as the expansion of our current site to 10,000m2, with 1000m2 dedicated to R&D. Alongside this, there is also an important antenna measurement site developed in partnership with local bodies. Another important investment was made towards the end of 2010/beginning of 2011, with the start up of a new plant in Tunisia focused on wire and antenna transmission production.
