How’s everyone holding up?
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The "Dying" of Bose = "The Dying of America"! Innovation, Creativity, Vision, Work Ethic, Pertinence, Fortitude, Originality and Pride - are all hallmarks of what makes an institution great and also mirrors a country's greatness. Once Mr. Bose died so, too, did Bose!
Just wait until GM finds out how horrible cyber security is and they lie on the assessment. GM will pull Bose out of all new vehicles and its lights out
Sorry you don't move to Atlanta to save money. They did it to make sure no one will transfer or wanna apply for their job again. Can everyone and rehire overseas. All the while theu can be like no we didn't fire anyone and outsource no one applied
Atlanta really does su-k. I've been in traffic jams after midnight. And often the winter has very cold days. And the city has no water front of any kind. And agressive beggars all over the place.
Framingham was never a business friendly town/city. Taxes on businesses are ridiculously high. Dr Bose used to complain about this quite often. I'm sure that Sanofi would love to take over the Mountain top. It would fetch a pretty penny. Maybe balance the budget for a month or two.
"What was the reason given for moving to Atlanta?"
I don't know what reason was given, but I'd bet that they'll offer older employees with families to choice to be relocated or resign. Many with families won't want that, and oh well; Bose didn't really want them anyway
And Oh! I can assure you that the traffic in Atlanta is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy worse than Boston. I've seen 12 lane parking lots on a Saturday morning offseason. My wife refuses to go thru Atlanta anymore, and I have to take back routes to visit my uncle when we head that way. After that, my uncle told "NEVER DRIVE THRU ATLANTA!!!" Ditto for Charlotte, NC. Nashville also a nightmare during rush hour and lunch. Tampa is bat$hit crazy, and the roads change every time we visit. Just outside of these places, you'll see the same crazy stunts you see from Boston drivers, only at 80mph
Buy Other Sound Equipment
Lie-la really needs to go. I'm sure there is another thriving company out there (somewhere) that she can help destroy. The board of directors should also all resign. I guess the old BOSE acronym, Better-Off-Somewhere-Else, which used to be just a playful joke, is now sadly appropriate.
According my sources the Distribution Centers(DC) are being taking over by DHL and repair is going to Mexico.
I have a thought. What if the CEO along with other very higher ups are tanking the company to try a pull a hostile take over of the controlling interest from MIT. Because they are pi---d the company did not go public when DR Bose passed away. If they are not successful with that, they will still get paid when they have to sell everything. Win win situation.
I was let go in December. I enjoyed my time there but it's easy to see that the company is dying out fast. With 100% outsourcing to China for manufacturing and Mexico for distribution, the quality of the products, which used to be a trademark of Bose, is very poor. The marketing dept is also making some very questionable campaigns IMO. They have completely ostracized any customer who isn't in Gen Z it seems. Hiring practices are also questionable it seems as young and diverse trumps over anyone else who is qualified. It doesn't seem to be working out for them... It's sad to see a once iconic brand going down. I hope all the best for the current employees. There are some truly great people there.
DC- Distribution Center,
the way the made it sound was the E-commerce outbound (and resellers) were going to a 3rd party.
What is a DC (in the context of a layoff)?
As someone who was let go in the last wave, I am curious what the details are this time. I thought going 3rd party for DCs and logistics was bad. What happened this time?
It's a tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme. Not as much income as expected, costs more than expected. Plans to grow revenue continue to fail, margins continue to fall, so there's really only one lever they can pull: cut costs.
Management has to try to sell this, so they rely on "messy middle" messaging to try to maintain an image of better times being just ahead. Unfortunately, Bose is stuck in this "messy middle", and there's no good end to this story. There probably isn't much left to sell after Pro.
Boston is a tough area to compete for talent with, since you're up against Sonos, Facebook/Meta and Amazon, and they all have more money and better products. So what can they do? Move to cheaper places, outsource more.
The writing is on the wall, and has been for a while: Bose is dying. The brand has been mortgaged to the hilt, and it's on its last legs. Bose will go the way of Blackberry/RIM, and in 5 years will be an interesting case study for "hey whatever happened to...".
In the meantime, people will come & go (but more will go). Layoffs will happen every 3-6 months. Management will continue to talk about necessary cuts with a brighter future ahead. Bright-eyed new employees will arrive full of optimism and energy, buying into the idea of building a leaner Bose. That will never materialize. Maybe a new CEO at some point, but at this point, that's just window dressing; the course has been set.
As someone who was let go in the last wave, I am curious what the details are this time. I thought going 3rd party for DCs and logistics was bad. What happened this time?
Anyone know why they have asked all employees to work remotely this time around?
So we can't commiserate in a way they can't track (Teams).
Dr. Bose is turning in his grave..., so sad to see the CEO breaking the company down. People who believe her are very d-mb. Rise up and unionize! Just for dr. Bose!!!
They are filling their pockets and in 3 years Bose is broke, you'll see ;-)
According to the Bose 401k plan and all employees terminated with less than 3 years of service are losing the employee match.
Real reason to move to Atlanta = cheap labor. Also Bose will replace half of the number of people laid off.
Funny how they are hiding behind the diverse talent pool of Atlanta. Just look at the nearby colleges of each city (Boston vs Atlanta) and you can see where the real talent is.
Good luck to anyone caught up in this mess.
They won't hire that many in atlanta. They will just let capgamni do more IT work at a fraction of the cost. This way they can maintain some level of feel good optics
What was the reason given for moving to Atlanta?
Wow. Speechless.
I can't speak for every department, but I know the entire IT team from the CIO down was just told their jobs were being moved to Atlanta. No--people can't transfer to Atlanta. It doesn't matter if you've worked there for 20+ years, have amazing performance reviews, have deep knowledge of how things work, where things are, and how to make things go. If they want a job there, they can apply like everyone else. Folks are being given different exit dates based on the work they're doing. And for the first time I've ever heard of this: the company is going to claw back any 401k contributions they made if you've been there less than 3 years, plus no pension for you. Not sure how that's legal, but it's what I was told by HR.
The layoffs will continue until the company is a corporate headquarters that selects mediocre products to allow (ie charge) to put the Bose band on it.
They will probably have an advanced development group attempting to invent something.
It will be sold before development because that too expensive and risky of a venture over cashing a check.
What a complete turn-around from when Dr Bose was at at the helm. He made one huge mistake and his initials are B.M. My guess is the other 49% share holders just want to drain the company. MIT cannot interfere with business transactions
Yes
So does anyone have any details on the layoffs
The anti-semitic racists at MIT who own Bose, installed the latest rendition of a controlled woke nutcase to transform what was once a great company into a me-too has been. When they trotted out the dancing diversity v.p. it was a death knell for any older white guy still working there. If you are still employed my advice is to do as little as possible to keep what job is left and use their resources to find employment elsewhere. If you are one of the woke enlightened ones who think they have a future you are mistaken unless you are in the v.p club where you might get another vacation home at the expense of the little people.
As someone who left in 2018 this is just so sad. Seems the president is quite busy going to tech female empowerment events while sc--wing over the men AND women who’ve dedicated their careers to Bose.
RIP, Bose. Just end the suffering will ya?!
It’s incredibly painful to watch for the thousands who, for decades, poured heart and soul into this company, and the multitudes trying to make a living there now.
Not just everything going to Atlanta, check job postings, Lisbon and China are big hiring centers right now. Eventually will be a US company in name only.
I guess my dream of ECO2 new music services are going the way of the Wave Music system LOL
If this is layoffs, what teams are impacted?
Cutting costs by moving all jobs to Atlanta. If not caught in this layoff the one in another couple months will take more people.
We should unionize.
When will they layoff managers who are allowed to work remotely so they can be snow birds.
What's the details
The layoff, while a bit untimely, would ultimately be welcome. My brief time at Bose has been one of high frustration. Frustration with how things are done, the mountain of tech debt and tribal knowledge, and the strange relationship with eInfoChips where they are incentivized to seemingly always take the path of expedience over long term maintainability.
Yes, I work in software.
To anyone staying back in this “ultra” stable company. GET OUT! Before it’s too late.
Telling everyone to stay home on layoff day is usually a very bad sign.
Anyone know why they have asked all employees to work remotely this time around?
I heard that the layoff was today and tomorrow. Can anybody confirm this, or was it just invites went out today for layoff meetings tomorrow?