EAW’s David Raneses Always Tries To Look Ahead At The Market
SCN:What is your position, and what does it entail?
David Raneses: Manager EAW Commercial pretty much entails everything. If it says EAW Commercial on it, it’s my responsibility. This starts with product concepts to working with our engineering team, manufacturing, following build schedules and billing cycles, working with EAW’s dedicated marketing team—basically everything from product conception to bringing it to market. I have to be looking at the entire process, all the while adhering to EAW’s passion for designing and building high-quality, high-performance audio equipment. Along the way I’m interfacing with contractors and acousticians to aid with product ideas and product refinements.
SCN: How has your background prepared you for this role?
DR: I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do a lot of different things, and that has allowed me to interface with a lot of different people who look at the same problem in different ways. This has given me a broad perspective when I look at market opportunities, product development, product solutions, and so on. Before working at EAW, I did record mastering, and I was a recording engineer, a proper studio cat! So I’ve kind of hit it from a lot of different angles.
SCN:What are your short- and longterm goals?
DR: Short-term, it’s about delivering the products that we say we’re going to deliver when we say we’re going to do it, at the price points that we say we’re going to. Long-term, it’s to continue to develop the products that people tell me they need in dealing with contractors, and being able to do it out in front of the market, if at all possible. But there’s always that danger of being too bleeding edge, where it takes some time for the market to catch up. It’s all about timing, but with long-term that’s what we like to do—we try to look ahead at the market. In three to five years, how are people going to have products installed? Will they even be using screwdrivers anymore? Those types of ongoing questions you need to ask.
SCN: What is the greatest challenge you face?
DR: Right now it’s the global economy. It’s very difficult these days as a manufacturer to create products and get them to market at the price points you said you were going to when economically the whole world seems to be in upheaval.
SCN:Where do you see the market heading?
DR: Convergence, convergence, convergence. It seems like people like to have more functionality in a smaller footprint. That doesn’t just apply to electronics. Look at a typical loudspeaker enclosure: now you can actually get a lot of sound with wide dispersion from a little tiny box. It’s about twisting the laws of physics a little bit to do some really cool stuff. People are looking to make things smaller, easier to install and service.
SCN:How can system contractors better position themselves to profit from the products EAW has to offer?
DR: The new SMS series is a really good example of how we’re approaching this. We have plastic enclosures that are physically quite small that will cover more acoustic space. We’re actually telling contractors and consultants that if you spec this product, it’s good for your budget in that you’ll actually need fewer of our products, to get the same kind of dispersion and coverage. But that doesn’t mean the contractor can’t charge the same for the job—it’s still worth the same amount of money, and because you’re actually having to install fewer pieces of gear with unique mounting solutions that allow installation of the gear much more quickly, well you still get to charge the customer the same. EAW is trying to minimize the amount of time the contractor spends on the job by providing highquality, great sounding, easy-to-install, profitable products.
