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Competences
A company builds up its core competences through experience, practise and development. At Bang & Olufsen we recognise the importance of identifying, cultivating and exploiting our strengths. They are the glue that binds us together as a company as well as the engine of new business development. Our core competences are what make us strong and make us different. Although we have many areas of expertise, we have identified eight, which we refer to as core competence areas:
Picture
Bang & Olufsen strives to ensure that the consumer has a picture reproduction that is as faithful to the real-life experience as possible. Towards this aim, we have identified and worked with a number of parameters, which affect the picture quality. We have built a special facility, which is unique within the trade, where we can test picture reproduction under a variety of viewing conditions to be able to continuously improve the experience we offer the customer. The whole idea is to dynamically adapt and make the best performance at all times with as little disturbance to the viewer as possible.
»Read more about our picture competence here
Sound
Our goal is to create products that can reproduce the sound material as authentically as possible and in the way the artist intended it; being faithful to the original is our reference. At Bang & Olufsen we use development and test facilities unequalled in the industry and as members of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) we contribute to a large number of scientific papers within acoustics every year.
»Read more about our sound competence here
User Interaction
We have accepted the challenge of making technically complex products into something that is easy to understand and use. We use experienced psychologists to analyse the results of user tests we undertake during development. We aim to achieve an operation and access to our products that is recognisable to the extent that once you have learned the principles; you can almost intuitively operate even new and unfamiliar products. We believe that general human behaviour patterns should govern user interaction, not engineers’ way of thinking.
System integration
Makes technology disappear and is an area where Bang & Olufsen has been and still is the major pioneer in the industry. We have many ways of seeing integration. Firstly, the integration of several entertainment sources into one unit, and secondly the idea of linking different products to one another, although placed in different rooms, through our unique BeoLink system. We integrate products of the future with products of the past, as you can interconnect many old products with new. We even think of integration of Bang & Olufsen products with non-Bang & Olufsen products with the aim of making life easier for the user.
Moving mechanics
Mastering technology alone is not enough for us, nor is it enough for our customers. We believe that technology must be designed to both respect and challenge the human senses. The emotional appeal should be considered just as important as any technical specification. By appealing to the basic human needs for pleasure, confirmation and surprise, we intend to involve the user in a dialogue.
A large part of the magic behind many Bang & Olufsen products lies in the mechanical movements that are incorporated in their design. Lids that slide aside, glass doors that glide open as your hand approaches, drawers which open and close when products are switched on and off, TV sets that turn to face you when switched on etc. All these movements are based on a concept that states: They may surprise, but never shock, they may be heard but never disturb, they may not start or stop abruptly - the movement must be controlled completely.
Design
Design is a craft that is at the core of everything we do. We use design to tell a story about our ideas, our products and ourselves. Even though design is such an obvious competence area at Bang & Olufsen, we prefer to work with freelance designers, who maintain a broad creative horizon. As design is part of the concept development, the designer is involved in all the thinking.
Materials and finish
The “words” of the design language are found in mechanics - the materials, the surface, the finish and the shape, the look and the feel. The challenge is to give the designer as many different “words” as possible for him to express himself. The competence lies in our manufacturing skills, both internally and from partners. Internal focus is, amongst other areas, on aluminium, where Bang & Olufsen has established a leading role. Different plastics, glass, rubber, zinc, cloth, steel and wood are also part of the vocabulary from the authentic materials that we work with.
Quality
Bang & Olufsen products are designed to be not only aesthetically pleasing but also essentially functional and easy to use. The expectations raised by a strikingly individual appearance must be completely fulfilled in terms of high quality performance in all areas when the system is switched on. Therefore, our excellence in providing the consumer with the highest pleasure in both ownership and use rests on “high quality” as the common denominator of all activities and competence areas.