The world's leading drone manufacturer, China's DJI Technology, is drastically downsizing its teams responsible for global sales and marketing. This is due to problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic and growing political pressure in key markets, Reuters reported, citing informants from among current and former employees of the company.
The world's largest drone maker has cut its corporate sales and marketing team at its Shenzhen headquarters from 180 people to 60 in recent months. Similar cuts have also affected the consumer department. DJI's international team that produced promotional videos to showcase the capabilities of its drones has been reduced from 40-50 people at its peak to about three people now. South Korea fired its entire six-person marketing team.
Reuters spoke to more than 20 current and recently departed DJI employees who reported these cuts, but wished to remain anonymous. Responding to questions from Reuters journalists, a DJI representative partially confirmed the situation: according to him, after many years of strong growth in 2019, the company realized that its structure was becoming unwieldy to manage.
βWe have had to make some difficult decisions to reallocate talent so that we can continue to achieve our business goals during difficult times,β added a DJI spokesperson. However, he stressed that the Reuters data on layoffs is very inaccurate and does not take into account the attraction of new employees or internal reshuffling between teams, but avoided specific numbers.
Many sources said that the company was looking to significantly reduce the number of its employees, which was approximately 14 people. βAfter 000, our revenue skyrocketed and we just kept hiring people without putting in place the proper structure to take us from a startup to a big company,β said a former senior employee.
Another former senior official said a confidant of chief executive Frank Wang compared the layoffs to the Chinese Communist Army's Long March. In 1934-1936, the Red Army, waging continuous battles, retreated more than 10 thousand kilometers from southern China through the inaccessible mountainous regions to the Yan'an district of Shaanxi province. The party was saved at the cost of thousands of lives. βLetβs see who is left at the end, but at least we will become more united,β said a DJI source.
DJI now controls over 70% of the consumer and industrial drone market and is valued at $8,4 billion this year, according to Frost & Sullivan researchers. DJI, founded by Frank Wang Tao when he was still a student at 2006, is widely recognized as the founder of the emerging industry and is one of the national prides of China.
In 2015, the Phantom 3 drone made high-quality aerial photography accessible to a wider audience with its gimbal-mounted four-axis camera and ease of control, while the Inspire 1 replaced helicopter photography in many Hollywood studios. Since then, many more consumer and professional solutions have been released for photo and video shooting, mapping, geodesy and other areas. DJI drones help track wildfires, check leaks at pipelines and refineries, build 3D maps of construction projects, and much, much more.
But DJI is facing mounting political pressure in the United States, where President Donald Trump's administration is waging an aggressive campaign against Chinese companies it considers a national security threat. In January, the U.S. Department of the Interior halted the use of its entire fleet of DJI drones, citing security concerns (which DJI calls the allegations unfounded). Last month, French and American researchers said the DJI mobile app was collecting far more information than it needed. DJI stated that the report contains inaccuracies and misleading statements.
The company has so far seen little political hostility in Europe, but it is reported that DJI is seriously concerned about future problems, especially against the background of the problems of Huawei Technology, whose headquarters is located nearby in Shenzhen. Many European carriers are phasing out Huawei as a network equipment supplier.
Some former employees who spoke to Reuters said their layoffs were justified by a decline in sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the company provided little inside information about its business prospects. Others cite geopolitics as the key reason for internal "reforms".
The layoffs reportedly began in March when the head of the company ordered new vice president of marketing Mia Chen to cut two-thirds of its marketing and sales staff.
DJI, which is backed by U.S. venture capital giants Sequoia Capital and Accel, does not publish any financial statements, so Reuters does not know if the company is profitable and how much the pandemic has hit sales. A DJI spokesperson said the impact of the virus was "less significant" than many companies.
According to 15 sources, the reforms seem to signal that the company will focus more on the Chinese market, and this has already led to some tension between DJI headquarters and its overseas offices. Two whistleblowers who previously worked at the company's European office in Frankfurt said they left because the company had become less open to non-Chinese. DJI assures that international colleagues work hand in hand regardless of nationality.
Earlier this year, Mario Rebello, vice president of DJI North America, and Martin Brandenburg, chief development officer for Europe, both left the company, reportedly due to headquarters issues. Both declined to comment on these claims. Both markets are now dominated by Chinese citizens who moved from Shenzhen last year, as their LinkedIn profiles show.
Eight employees said the company has also greatly reduced its in-house translator team, and now DJI documents are rarely published in languages ββother than Chinese. The internal Vision and Values ββdocument, published in Chinese in December, was not available in English.
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Source: 3dnews.ru