Furman thinks internationally

Lesa Kinney, once at Apogee, is now international sales manager at Furman Sound, the established audio and music technology manufacturer also located in Petaluma, California. Here was a genuine agenda, with the emphasis on the word 'international' in her title: "Furman Sound has placed a lot of its marketing and engineering resources lately in the home theatre industry, data communications and systems integration," she said, "while continuing to focus on the MI and contractor market. Until recently, most of this activity has been focused on the domestic North American market.

"We are now thinking globally. We now design 230V products as we are developing domestic products. We're doing market research internationally, and directing publicity and press releases to international publications. In order to make it easier for our distributors to get information from us in a timely fashion, we 've created an international website. Here, our distributors can download data sheets - soon to be available in different languages - keep abreast of new product introductions, and overall be informed of company activities, personnel changes and new product launches."

This spring, for the first time in the company's history, an International Distributor Council will be formed at the Frankfurt MusikMesse. According to Kinney, the duties of the council will include polling other distributors with concerns, making marketing recommendations, developing operational policies and generally acting as a sound-board to give the company an idea of how it's being perceived by the international community.

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