B&O On Location: Peter Petersen Interview

Interview with Peter Petersen, Director of Technology, Bang & Olufsen

I was fortunate enough to spend a few moments interviewing Peter Petersen, the Director of Technology at Bang & Olufsen. I've transcribed this almost verbatim only cleaning up a little of the text for clarity. When you see ellipses (…) it is because a train of thought was changed in mid sentence and not because of omitted information.

How long have you been with B&O?

I've been with the company for 28 years.

What is your background?

I'm an electrical engineer with a Master's degree from the Danish Technical University and then after graduation I joined Bang & Olufsen. I started, in fact, in acoustics. I did some programming on automatic crossover network generation and then on to my first big task which was the introduction of CD at the beginning of the '80s.

If you had to describe Bang & Olufsen to someone that had never heard of the company, how would you describe it?

I see the important points of Bang & Olufsen qualities - of course their design, their looks. Aesthetically very well designed but combined with very, very good performance - on picture, on sound, and on user interface.

What is the philosophy of the company?

The philosophy of Bang & Olufsen to make products that are useable by human beings. We focus very much on the human aspect. So, as an engineer, you have to put yourself in the place of the end user. You are not only an engineer designing electronics or software… you are also the user. You are a user representative in the design process. So, you think of the end user's experience when designing - and to do that we have teams where a lot of people are playing this role. We have industrial designers, but also engineers very well skilled in acoustics; and picture process to make these products because we have aesthetically well-designed products but our performance has to meet the standards of the design.

What are the goals of your loudspeaker design?

Of course it very much depends on the type of product we are going for. Is it going to be a small speaker or big speaker… With the BeoLab 5 the goal was the ultimate. To produce a speaker that would give you the ultimate sound playback from a speaker. From the very low frequencies to the high frequencies… anything to meet the expectations of anybody. But when you are designing a small speaker, you have some constraints because of the size. Also, the price can be a constraint so we cannot put in all the amplifiers on the driver units that we want. Given, for instance, the size, which is the basic limiting factor then getting the best sound out of that given size.

So, does that mean you start more often with the size or shape of the speaker rather than the price point?

I would absolutely say that we would not start with the price. We would start with the size. Where are we going to see this one placed? See the placement [in the room] gives you an idea of the size [of the speaker] and then you can start working on the aesthetical design and the acoustics at the same time. Trying to get the maximum from the acoustics based on the size. Is there space for a three-way system or do we only have the space for a two-way system… amplifiers… what levels can we have, what amplifier do we need to get the best performance from these driver units?

All you speakers are active speakers. Is that something you see continuing through the future or will that change?

To be quite honest, we will be introducing an in-wall speaker that is not active in a short while. That is because of regulations - because it is difficult to put a high voltage amplifier into the walls. But the principle is active speaker[s] because we can have much more performance tuning the amplifiers for each of the drivers in the speaker systems.

Because you focus so heavily on design, is that why you need the control that an active speaker solution provides?

Yes. It's an integrated design with the acoustics, amplifier, and signal processing.

What is the process from idea to actuality in creating a new product?

We set down a team and for sure there will be a designer on that team. But also we will need the engineers that are skilled in the specific areas (if it is a speaker we will need amplifier engineer, acoustical engineer, mechanical engineer) and then they start off the project thinking "What's the target here?" What's the size, as I said. The shape? Think about where it is going to be placed [in the room], where it is going to be playing. And then the engineers should come up with new ideas, new solutions, new methods of making this product better than what we did before.

The world of technology produces improvements and we have to take them into our products. If it is a television that is a starting point, then it could be a new generation of displays with new features could be starting point for a new television. But we are always looking for starting points that [are] something new, something new we can do to generate experience on the product.

And then we run a process… maybe six months or so… and at the end of that process we have a design. And that design will be very similar to the product that will come out to the market maybe one and a half years later. Of course, we haven't really developed it yet, we have just reached the specification of the design. We also know how it sounds. If it is a television with integrated sound or if it is a loudspeaker we know the sound... we can simulate the sound. We know the rough specifications for the using space. We know the picture performance. All those experience parameters we know but haven't actually designed electronic circuits and so on. But we know, because of the skills of the engineers, we know the specifications plus the internal specifications and that is the 'build or no' vote for the big investment. Because what we have invested so far is maybe only 10% of the whole investment in the product to bring it to market. Then we make the goal and invest the rest and…

After the team comes up with the design, that goes before who to decide to continue investing?

We have a council that meets every month and they will make a decision. That decision is based on a small report… a one page report on the cost, one page on the turnover, and the rest describing the product. The most important factor is the feeling the council members have listening to or viewing the product. What is their subjective feeling… because if the product excites the whole management then it will be possible to make money on this product. This is the philosophy. You have to excite.

At that point it goes back to the engineers…

Yes. And then we'll form a project team of engineers and make the big investment.

What are your future plans for active room correction other than the speaker level system in the BeoLab 5?

Automatic correction for the placement of the listener we are experimenting on but we haven't found the right solution. We have found solutions that work if you are sitting here and there is one person in the room. The problem is, if you optimize for one person, then if there are others in the room, they will have maybe not as good an experience. Because when you get to the higher frequencies, you can optimize for one position but for other positions you will do worse. That's our experience but we will keep looking. One thing, the lens technology, because it spreads acoustic energy in all directions, it improves… enhances the sweetspot for the listener. But I wouldn't say that we have found the optimal solution yet and we will keep looking.

What about passive room correction?

That is another way but that is not in our control because we are just delivering products. But of course when you make big installations like in the BeoLiving, you are obliged to also have a skilled acoustician - someone that knows room acoustics - to know what to put that in the room. But basically that is not in our control when designing the products.

When doing your Perceptional Research, you assemble in house teams. Is there some sort of systematic way that you go test consumer reactions to a new product before it is launched?

Basically, the specifications of the sound, the sound performance, is in-house. But the tool we have is the Listening Panel. Our philosophy is that we calibrate the Listening Panel to end users in general and they are the end users' representative in this. They are trained, they are skilled, and they can be used quite fast. If you have a Listening Panel of say 8 persons, you can take them in, have tests one day and then calculate the statistics the next day and then you have the results. If you want to have the same quality of feedback you need maybe 100 people from the street - it takes a lot longer. So the philosophy is to have a Listening Panel that is trained. They are not only listening to Bang & Olufsen loudspeakers but they are forced to listen to other manufacturers loudspeakers here at Bang & Olufsen and in their homes and they are forced to go to live events where sound is important - movie theaters, concerts (both reinforced and acoustic) so they have a wide reference in their minds. And then we can use them as our measurement tools.

When speaking with Geoff Martin, he indicated that you don't always ask your Listening Panel "do you like it."

That's right. What we are looking for is that objective feedback on the "depth" on the "width" on these sorts of things. Attributes of sounds. And not going to the point where we ask if you like it or not because that's not the point. That, in the end, becomes very, very subjective.

Your testing methodology can be considered controversial - a lot of people may not buy into it. Within Bang & Olufsen, is it a popular idea?

It is a widely accepted way and therefore I would say popular. We believe in this way of doing things. So widely accepted.

[Note - I asked this question because I sensed some dissent about this procedure from some of the B&O employees I talked to.]

Your target consumer is who?

It is a person who has some preferences for a quality level and is prepared to pay for having that quality. Quality matters to that person. Quality in general. Performance. The aesthetics matter to that person. This person has placed such a high priority on these things that they are willing to spend more money.

Do you see your target consumer base expanding, contracting, or staying the same in the future?

I think our consumers are changing because, for instance, the convergence of technology. As they get more skilled in certain technology and as technology shifts… We also believe that at the moment our target base is widening. We see growth in our sales and that is because our target group is widening.

As new technologies emerge, how much pressure does Bang & Olufsen feel to "keep up?"

We are not just following every movement of the market. We basically are primarily building products for the home, for multiple homes of course because many of our customers have multiple homes [Americans, don't balk at this statement. It is much more common to have multiple homes in Europe than it is here]. When new technologies come out, we will evaluate those and see if we have good concepts to utilize this technology. We are not in the "hit and run" market you could say. It is more long term things we do.

What are your key marketing directions, avenues, etc.?

We have a strong position in what we call the B1 shops which is a Bang & Olufsen owned shop. We want to widen that channel which is an important part of the marketing. That's the Bang & Olufsen showrooms. Where you can also buy the products. And that is an important part of the marketing because you are invited to come and have the experience. Sit down, listen, watch the products work. Have the experience of all the products. This is very, very important for the customers to have the experience when they decide to buy a Bang & Olufsen product.

It seems that you have a lot of collaborative work - you work in teams. There also seems to be empowerment - workers are encouraged to set up their own stations. How does Bang & Olufsen see itself as far as a corporate structure?

I think the Scandinavian culture, the hierarchy in the society and Scandinavian companies is more flat and the floor level is empowered to do a lot of things. You don't have to ask, you don't have to wait until someone comes to tell you what to do. We expect from normal employees that they know what to do and they'll just start doing it. Of course, along some guidelines but more "guidelines" than "do this or…" kind of order.

How does someone know they are doing a good job?

You have evaluations. Each employee will be evaluated by his or her manager. And that manager will have to ask people who are working together with the given employee to do this evaluation. What we evaluate, of course, is within their specific discipline their skills but also your personal and social skills. How do you relate… how do you work in teams. Are you a front runner in teamwork or are you always sitting back. It's an evaluation that comes right around.

Every year the employee will sit down with their manager and have a talk for one and a half or two hours where they go through this evaluation and where the employee has the possibility to discuss his or her uses for the future - future work - for new directions for their job. That is standard procedure and these talks are in this period of the year. And that is independent of the talks that you have when discussing your salary. Because, of course, salary is part of the appraisal but the appraisal is more wide than just the salary.

What are the things you look for in a very good employee?

Each specific job has a role. How efficient you are in this role? You could be at the front end where idea generation and pursuing ideas and these sorts of things is important. Or you could be at the back end of a project where finalizing all the details… so depending on the specific role and the efficiency to produce results. The efficiency to produce results is based on your skills in your specific disciple but also social relations because nobody is doing a complete job on his or her own.

What about productivity versus quality of work?

Quality is number 1. You have to give the product specifications as intended. The quality is the most important.

So, say you had an employee that was brilliant - Einstein - but they didn't work well with others. Would they last long at Bang & Olufsen?

We call them "Gorillas" and the organization has to have room for these Gorillas. That means the people working around the Gorilla has to adapt. So it is not only up to the Gorilla to adapt to the team but the team has to adapt because everyone knows he's a Gorilla. He's efficient in his way. But we need to take special care. That's evaluated on the team and the team's ability to make this Gorilla efficient.

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about Bang & Olufsen?

I think when we are talking about employees, most employees are very, very motivated to work for Bang & Olufsen because of the things we do, the products we produce. Everybody is just proud and maybe that is the most important motivating factor in working with Bang & Olufsen. Salary is, of course, important but the motivation comes not only from the salary but also from products we produce, the quality, the high performance, and the image of the brand. So we are very proud to work here and have motivation from that.