PEOPLE & SKILLS
NAME: SIR JAMES DYSON JOB TITLE: FOUNDER COMPANY: DYSON INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY HEADQUARTERS: SINGAPORE
Sir James Dyson is a pioneering British inventor and entrepreneur. Renowned for his persistence and“ wrong thinking,” he transformed a bagless vacuum prototype into a global engineering and agricultural empire. of 5,000 things that didn’ t work.” In 1992, Dyson bought a factory site in Wiltshire from which he grew a £ 2.75bn( US $ 3.7bn) enterprise. That growth required a series of coldeyed decisions that tested Sir Dyson’ s reputation as a champion of British industry. The first major rupture happened in 2002 when he moved manufacturing to Malaysia. This shift was met with accusations of betrayal from unions and politicians. Dyson’ s defence was unsentimental: production costs were 30 % lower and the proximity to Asian suppliers and emerging markets was a logistical necessity. While assembly went offshore, R & D and high-level engineering remained in Malmesbury. By 2019, the move was complete with the relocation of corporate headquarters to Singapore. With more than half of sales coming from the Asia- Pacific region, Dyson positioned himself at the centre of his future market. Today, the St James Power Station factory in Singapore produces 13 million digital motors a year for everything from vacuums to hair dryers. In his memoir, Dyson wrote of the move:“ Manufacturing companies need to be very close to their suppliers for speed of technology development, and Asia is the home of consumer electronics. Dyson is a manufacturing company, and it too needed to be close to its suppliers. Furthermore, our big growth markets are in Asia too. It would be arrogant to think that Dyson could be successful without being there.”
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