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A snowHead

The four major players in the ski industry seem to be so intent on desroying each other that they may in fact be desroying themselves. Amer-Salomon, Quicksilver-Rossingnol have all seen recently, wholesale changes at stock and shareholder levels, and with that now somewhat behind us, the personnel are starting to feel the waves of change. I have friends that work for all of the brands, including Dynastar-Lange-Look and in not one case do the shake ups and changes seem to bring about any benifits to staff or consumer. By this it would seem the companies conceared are intent to bring in huge change at the cost of already well established reputations.

Will Rossingnol become an outdoor brand and go head to head again with Salomon on a different level.

Will we see no more of Salomon and Rossignol in World Cup Skiing?

Will Dynastar become pure race and go head to head with Atomic?

I doubt any of these could come true, however the uncertainties that lie within each on of those brands we know can only serve to benifit the smaller factories, to which all of us are becomng every more pleased and aware of. Little Angel

A snowHead

SMALLZOOKEEPER,

I don't know what this will mean for someone like me but I am generally a fan of the small but very worthy manufacturers with local factories. You can't ship out manufacturing to the far east every single time as eventually Europe would never make anything....

If I buy equipment the last thing I want to see is "Made in China" or somewhere in the Far East..

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Agreed!! Generally the only people who benefit from mergers and acquisitions are the investment *ankers whose bonuses hyperinflate on the back of them. (Not my opinion, see the research...)

If this means that small manufacturers get lower barriers to entry and better opportunities to turn a fair profit, provide better quality and value then that's got to be good for all of us.

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JT, That's slightly a different issue however related for sure. Wow i have time to elaborate. Firstly, for you. Where would you like your skis to be manufactured? And to what benefit ?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

SMALLZOOKEEPER,

Skis, to be made by a nation with real ski empathy so that would be the alpine nations and the US and Canada in the 1st instance. I'm sure a few serious Brits might have a reasonable bash but would have marketing issues, I guess.

If I ski Dynastar, I would like to see " Made in France" and I would want them to have real input from the local industry, be that local shops in the mountains, seasoned users, like guides/instructors etc and top level users. Assuming that my level could get anywhere near a ski designed by a top level user..!! I'd accept the design would have to be somewhat watered down to appeal to a wide range of skiers but I would look for that. The product would have to cut it, of course.

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SMALLZOOKEEPER,

Ok, hand-made and locally made. I wouldn't not buy a Dynastar made in the Far East or a Jacket, for that matter but I would prefer to pay a reasonable premium for 'local' goods. But as DM says, making something in the Far East doesn't make it much cheaper here. The difference in manufacturing costs goes straight to maximising profits.

I've seen this situation loads...local guy sets up and and hand-makes his kit as a one-man show. Gets successful and can't cope with demand so has to employ another bod and machine more bits so dimishes the hand-made stance. Company grows more and original craftsman takes a role upstairs on the board. Enlarge and sell-out the hip and happening name to BIG BOYS. Big boys have brought name and kudos and go High St marketing stance. Then close down local factory and get manufacturing in Far East at very cheap rates. So what cost £300:00 in the UK for a local product still costs £300:00 when made in the Far East but they don't have to pay a European level salary. I bet you all know loads of companies that have done this.

If you take this set of events to its logical extreme you will not have a single manufacturing job in Europe, you'd import it all.
This is why the EU will be/is a protectionist area for good or bad.

OT a bit I know...but a bit of a pet theme...

After all it is free

JT, I wouldn't not buy a Dynastar made in the Far East or a Jacket, for that matter but I would prefer to pay a reasonable premium for 'local' goods. But as DM says, making something in the Far East doesn't make it much cheaper here. The difference in manufacturing costs goes straight to maximising profits.

In many cases, Nordica/Elan, Volkl for example. Eastern eurpean, Far Eastern manufacturing is seen as a way to maintain quality. The companies mentioned still make skis in Italy and Germany respectivly. They use the cheaper factories to generate the profit to fund the other. Without this jugling of figures, skis like the 'Karma' and the 'Race Tiger' would not exist. Little Angel

Don't care where it's made, or who by. only criteria is 'fitness for purpose' would rather buy quality from south east asia than cr@p made on my doorstep. fortunately the laws of economics ensure that I have the choice. Quality and price will tell in the long run.

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AxsMan,

But if you ship out ALL manufacturing who will pay the Western man his £25k average salary. We can't have 200 million or so EU peeps all working in services.

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AxsMan, I'm with you.

JT, I don't believe the Chinese or anyone else is better/cheaper at everything than Western Europeans (my own firm 'exports' services to China). As they get richer, there's more that their burgeoning middle classes will want to buy from us. Even if they turn out to be better/cheaper at everything, cutting ourselves off (like the old East Germany or North Korea) is no solution. Put another way, how do we expect them to afford expensive Airbuses, if we won't buy their cheap knickers?

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laundryman,
Thats assuming we make the Airbuses in Europe. My argument is when we ship all the manufacturing jobs, or just so many beyond a certain figure this country no longer has enough jobs to pay for the workings of the country, we have subbed so many jobs we don't have enough people in employment here. All service jobs do is pump what money is in circulation around and around. We don't make anything to sell outside the country so don't get richer. Yet the Western man still wants/needs his £25k pa

JT, it's a fallacy to regard some classes of job as wealth creating while others are not. Imagine two men on a desert island, one of whom makes excellent bows and arrows (a manufacturing job) while the other is expert at stalking and shooting game (a service job). It is incontrovertible that both contribute to the "wealth" represented by abundant meat.

You know it makes sense.

JT We do in fact have a large number of "wealth creating" jobs that don't appear to, but contribute as much if not more than your rather traditional view of manufacturing. What we "make" now is intellectual copyright be that advertising, music, software, pension funds (asset management), television etc. etc.. None of these I feel are any more or less worthwhile than ski manufacture or if it comes to that most otherareas of "manufacturing" other than food and medicines. How much do we really "need" skis, they are in fact just a part of the leisure service industry as are many other manufactured goods, certainly non essential to life . As long as we/ Europe are involved in the creative process not just being assembly monkey's I reckon I'm happy to see the products made for the best price (also spreads the joy to the rest of the world).

If you like your companies small and inovative Extrem, 4Front, ZAG, Armada, Line or even Stoeckli (if you want to pay for them - turns out not many do despite the fact they're quality locally made product)

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I can't recall for certain which ski factory first manufactured 'abroad', but I'm pretty sure it was Rossignol with their Spanish factory. An interesting early international merger was the Atomic (Austrian-founded and made) takeover of Dynamic (French-owned and made).

These trends of mergers and externally-sourced manufacture go back to the 1970s and are the means of companies maximising profit - only a natural growth and survival instinct common to any field of manufacture.

I began skiing in 1959, when most ski equipment was made out of wood and leather in small local Alpine factories or workshops. Some ski bootmakers were round the back of the shops which sold the boots. Many brands then grew into quite large concerns, but the vast majority have long since disappeared.

Henke boots (Swiss) were huge during the late era of leather boots, leather-plastic boots, and early custom-foaming.
Gertsch was a powerful brand during the same era, making 'plate' bindings.
Austrian and Swiss factories dominated ski manufacture during the 1960s. Several significant US ski factories set up in the 1970s: Hexcel, Olin etc. The Americans also had a pioneering boot brand in the early era of rear-entry boots: Hanson.
The French, namely Salomon and Rossignol, virtually wiped out the Austrian ski - and then boot - industries during the late 1970s onwards.

None of this chess-playing matters a huge amount unless it ultimately undermines the sport itself. The real point is that the great revolutions in ski, boot and binding design took place in the 1970s. Most activity since then has been tweaking and tinkering. Therefore the locations of manufacture probably don't matter that much any more. What does matter is that product designers remain true to the roots of the sport ... and close to the sliding.

A snowHead

David Goldsmith, goodness gracious, I agree with you. wink

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Rob, certainly the effects of enhancing the flex, torque and sidecut of skis has had dramatic effects on their performance and versatility. But this has been an evolutionary process. Fat skis go back to the Miller Soft, made in the States in the 60s. Certainly the early work on carving skis by Kneissl and Elan (primarily the latter) was significant, in that it was consumer-led (rather than racer-led), largely rubbished by other ski makers in the initial years, but ultimately significant enough to change racers' preferences in the ski lengths and designs they chose.

These enhancements have made skis ultra-responsive, but they've also increased piste erosion ... and have been identified as a key factor in twisting people's knees. Pitched against the leather-to-plastic change in boots (also blamed for knee injuries, admittedly) I'd say the carving ski is less significant, though hugely influential on technique and racing.

The greatest revolution of all in the past 30 years has undoubtedly been the snowboard, and the really interesting thing about that is how long it took the manufacturers to realise that a flat base and steel edges had to be directly copied from skis to make them work in all conditions.

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David Goldsmith, thanks for the history lesson.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

A pleasure, Rob. Keeps the memory cells turning over!

I was lucky enough to see Marker's prototype of the electronic binding back in the 1980s, and a number of engineers have speculated that its eventual introduction (which would provide variable release values for bindings, according to skier/snow/speed risks) could reduce knee injuries.

Now, that would really revolutionise the sport.

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David Goldsmith, very interesting!

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