March (PDF) - GN Store Nord

GLOBAL INNOVATOR IN PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS 1
06
AGAZINE
NEW GN HEADSETS
TAKING CENTER STAGE
NEW MARKETING STRATEGY FOR HEARING INSTRUMENTS – PAGE 6
“TALK SMART. GO WIRELESS” – NEW OFFICE HEADSETS FROM GN NETCOM – PAGE 14
JABRA AND THE TV STARS – PAGE 20
GN clearly demonstrated at the
world’s largest electronics fair,
CeBIT, that it still has the most comprehensive
and newest range of
headset solutions – Page 22

Still Growing Strong
EDITORIAL
2
CONTENTS
3 Traveling Business Developer
4 Can You Hear What I’m Saying?
4 Wind in Our Sales
6 No More Quiet Launches
7 IP has gone Mainstream
8 Hearing Instruments via Denmark
8 More Products from China
10 New GN Head Offi ce:
Built on Staff Input
12 Ticket to an International Career
14 More Freedom to Do Business
14 Sound Moves Mountains
16 Bluetooth ® in Stereo
16 GN Mobile Striking the Chords
18 Ready, Set, Record
20 Jack, Jennifer and Jabra
22 GN Territory at Hanover
24 Living Locally, Working Globally
GN Magazine 1 l 06
The upward trend continues in 2006 at GN, with revenue
set to jump by 20% to at least DKK 8 billion and EBITA predicted
to go up almost 15% to DKK 1 billion. Market conditions
are good, but GN is also investing for the future. In
2005, GN allocated a total of almost DKK 300 million more
to the sales, marketing and development departments, and
in 2006 another DKK 500 million will be added.
Expanding Hello Direct has already yielded a good return,
with a 44% surge in revenue in 2005. GN’s almost 100
new development employees will also yield a return, but
not for one, two or three years yet.
Like 2005, 2006 will also be a year of major challenges.
GN needs to increase growth rates in the hearing instrument
business to improve GN’s market share once more.
Thanks to the strongest product portfolio in the industry,
and this year’s fi rst product launches, the Resound Pixel and
the ReSound Plus5, GN has got nearly everything ready to
do just that. The product development is going well, and
GN plans to make a record number of product launches in
2006.
The 35% growth rate anticipated for Mobile Headsets puts
pressure on the supply chain. GN’s reaction has been to
start restructuring to better allocate the work between GN
and its subcontractors. GN intends to outsource our highvolume
products to subcontractors and to manufacture inhouse
the smaller series whose sales fl uctuate widely over
10
The fi rst 750 employees will be
New GN Head Offi ce
moving to GN’s new corporate headquarters
during the summer 2006.
the course of the year and have many variants. Keeping
day-to-day operations running smoothly while GN restructures
its production is a considerable challenge.
Contact Center & Offi ce Headsets will try to build on the
success in the United States and achieve the same on the
European market, where growth rates do appear to be
improving. The market for offi ce headsets represents some
70% of CC&O revenue, and GN expects to see growth
rates of 20-30% over the next few years. If GN retains its
35% market share, revenue can more than double over the
next fi ve years. To achieve that, GN has to work to improve
headset supply chain.
“Cash is King” is an old saying on Wall Street that also
applies to GN. Last year, GN lost a little bit of its grip on
the cash fl ow, because working capital outgrew revenue
growth. This year, GN must bring working capital down to
below 20% of revenue.
In order to achieve the goals set for GN, new colleagues
must be integrated in the organization quickly. This makes
heavy demands on the “old” GN employees, many of
whom have only been with GN for a few years. GN may
be an old company founded in 1869, but GN is also a new
business from 2003 that has many processes that still need
to be optimized.
Jørn Kildegaard
Eye-catching Marketing
The campaigns to promote the new midmarket
hearing instruments, the ReSound
Pixel and the ReSound Plus5, will be pick-
ing up where the attention-grabbing
6
approach used to launch
the ReSound Metrix left off.
20
Jack, Jennifer and Jabra
Jabra is taking a new marketing approach
in 2006, making greater use
of PR, product placement and ads
with opinion makers.

Traveling Business Developer
Calendar planning and prioritizing her time are two of Inna Fadyeyeva’s most important tools. As business
development manager with Beltone Canada, her job is to counsel and coach all Beltone dispensers
spread across fi ve time zones in this the world’s second-largest country.
Inna Fadyeyeva is a
trained ophthalmologist
from the Ukrainian
State Medical University
in Kiev. Before joining
Beltone Canada in 2001,
she ran an ophthalmology
practice for four years
and was medical director
with MDM Pharmaceuticals
Ltd. in the UK for
four years.
FACTS ON CANADA
Population: 33 million
An estimated 3.5 million suffer
from hearing loss, but only 20%
of this group have a hearing aid.
About 250,000 hearing aids are
sold in Canada each year.
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
“My job is a simple one: Helping Beltone dispensers develop
their businesses and expanding our relations with
the health care sector, especially the ear-nose-throat
specialists. The big challenge is managing my time,” says
Fadyeyeva.
Keeping an Eye on Things
Beltone has 22 exclusive dispensers operating a total of
more than 40 permanent hearing clinics in Canada’s major
cities and more than 100 ad hoc clinics in rural areas.
Inna Fadyeyeva aims to visit each dispenser at least twice
a year, and that means a lot of traveling. She spends
more than half of her working time on the road.
“Calling on the dispensers gives me a good idea of
what’s going on in the market and about the everyday
challenges they face. As a traveling consultant, I have the
benefi t of seeing things from the outside. At the same
time, I can benchmark each individual dispenser’s and
hearing clinic’s results and advise them on the best solutions,”
says Fadyeyeva.
She provides advice to the dispensers on everything
from sales, marketing, recruitment and HR management
to budgeting and accounts, and if necessary she also
helps out in other areas. If a dispenser is considering
whether to open a new clinic, she can help fi nd suitable
premises and new staff or select the right media for advertising
campaigns. She also advises and trains specialists
and receptionists at the clinics.
Personal Coaching
Another thing the dispensers benefi t from is the fact
that Fadyeyeva is a trained business coach. All dispensers
are given the opportunity for personal coaching on
business operations and management, mostly through
meetings on one or two specifi c topics held at the
dispenser’s premises and, because of the vast distances,
follow-up over the telephone.
“The combination of counseling and coaching helps
to build a very close relationship between GN and the
Beltone dispensers, and that has strengthened both the
individual dispenser’s business and GN’s market position.
Our goal is to lift the Beltone brand in Canada in 2006.
We don’t do that just by having an attractive design and
a standard clinic layout; we also need consistently high
standards in patient treatment as well as good service
and management at the clinics,” says Fadyeyeva.
Ear-Nose-Throat Program
Another important avenue to a strong Beltone brand is
through good relations with the ear-nose-throat specialists,
so Beltone launched a large-scale program to this
end in 2005. Many of the initiatives target new doctors
on their way to opening their own medical practice.
“For example, we’ve developed a number of very
practical tools with guidelines on how to set up your own
practice, and we’ve prepared a three-hour lecture for entrepreneurs
that we give at conferences and educational
centers. This is useful information for many new graduates.
It gives us good contacts in this important group of
professionals, and it builds up our name among the earnose-throat
specialists,” Fadyeyeva explains.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
3

Can You Hear What I’m Saying?
Sit down in a place where people are talking and there is background noise. Close your eyes. Put your hand over one ear
and stick a fi nger loosely in the other one. Then listen carefully and try to repeat what is being said, and fi nd out who said
it and where the sound is coming from. Now you’ll have a vague idea of what it’s like to have a hearing impairment.
Laurel A. Christensen
Andrew Dittberner
DEFINITIONS
GN Magazine 1 l 06
“In the real world, a hearing impairment is infi nitely
more complex. No two people’s hearing losses are the
same. The reasons for a hearing impairment often
differ quite a lot, too. That’s why treatment is also a
very complex and individual thing,” explains Laurel A.
Christensen, vice president of Research Audiology at
GN ReSound’s R&D department.
Research Center
For many years, GN ReSound has clinically diagnosed
people with a hearing impairment. In order to expand
these services and to learn more about hearing loss and
how to treat it, GN ReSound set up the Auditory
Research Laboratory (ARL) in August 2005 at GN’s
Technology Center in Chicago. The ARL is in the United
States because it is easier to recruit the best specialists
there.
Andrew Dittberner is head of the ARL. He has put
together a team of researchers: specialists in many differ-
Neurophysiology: Study of the function of the nervous system and the brain.
Psychoacoustics: Study of subjective human perception of sounds of different frequencies
and intensities.
Wind in Our Sales
“The market sent us a very clear signal in 2004: ‘We
like your products, but you’re not visible enough.’ We
weren’t well enough represented in our distribution
channels, either. For example, our offi ce headsets were
mainly sold through conventional channels for contact
center products and only to a slight extent through other
distributors to the large US offi ce market,” says Hans
Henrik Lund, president of GN Netcom.
Proactive Sales Approach
To rectify the situation, GN Netcom carried out a reassessment
of its distribution channels in the US at the
turn of the year 2004/2005. Part of the outcome was to
make Hello Direct the key driver in accelerating sales.
“Hello Direct is in direct contact with end users, and
ent fi elds, each with their own angle on hearing, such as
electronics or acoustic engineers or specialists in computer
science, neurophysiology of hearing, psychoacoustics
or audiology. Today, the team consists of fi ve people in
Chicago and one in Copenhagen, all working closely
together with other parts of the organization. The laboratory
facilities are second to none, and ARL is one of the
world’s most advanced research centers of its kind. It has
four special tasks.
With Other Ears
First of all, the ARL conducts research into how to improve
existing technologies and into developing new
ones such as new methods of digital sound processing
(DSP), enhancing directional hearing and reducing
acoustic feedback (high-pitched sounds).
“At the ARL, our job is also to ‘listen to the world’ with
the hearing capacity of a hearing-impaired person, using
simulated hearing loss and testing existing and future hearing
instruments. We look at which problems are solved,
which ones occur and which ones are still unsolved. The
ARL approaches hearing loss from mathematical, anatomic
and acoustic angles,” says Christensen.
Visible skills
A third project for ARL is advanced benchmarking of GN
GN Netcom had a slow year on the US market in 2004, losing market share and recording moderate growth in spite
of its position as technology leader on the market for wireless headsets for offi ces. However, things have changed.
GN Netcom saw strong growth acceleration on the US market throughout 2005, and the course remains set for continued
solid growth in the US and accelerating growth rates in the rest of the world.
4
OFFICE MARKET
RESEARCH
that is essential. Hello Direct takes a proactive approach
to selling our headsets; they contact potential users, so
we don’t have to wait for the users to discover us and our
headsets. They also apply the try’n’buy sales approach,
i.e. giving potential buyers a headset for a 30-day free
trial. If they’re not satisfi ed, they simply return it. In this
way users will get a chance to try the headset in everyday
situations. In addition, we’ve followed up on the sales effort
with aggressive marketing,” says Lund.
Broader Channels
In addition to the Hello Direct sales channel, GN Netcom’s
headsets are also marketed through US offi ce retail
chains such as Offi ceMax and Best Buy and the major
offi ce electronics distributors, including Ingram Micro,

ReSound’s hearing instruments against the competition.
Who is the leader in direction determination, feedback
suppression, noise reduction and sound quality? What
areas need development and where are there unsolved
problems?
The last of the ARL’s special jobs is to make visible the
knowledge and understanding accumulated about hearing
loss and about the functionalities of GN ReSound’s
hearing instruments. For the people at ARL, this means
extensive documentation, training, articles, reports and
conference presentations.
“That way, we can make GN ReSound’s extensive
know-how in the fi eld of audiology visible, both in house
at GN ReSound and to the world,” says Christensen.
the world’s largest IT distributor. GN Netcom has also
carefully reviewed its existing network of distributors
and dealers and will increasingly seek to work with more
technology-oriented retailers in the future. Information
technology and telephony are converging due to the rise
of IP telephony, so it is becoming increasingly important
that the dealers have the know-how and the products
that encompass these areas.
Massive Market Potential
The new strong sales channels and the accelerating
market have combined to produce substantial growth in
headset sales on the US offi ce market in 2005, and according
to Lund, the company has high expectations for
2006 as well.
Of the offi ce employees in the Western world who
use a telephone at least two hours daily, less than 10%
use a headset today, so GN believes the market holds a
great deal of growth potential. Sales projections call for
annual growth rates of 20-30% on the market for offi ce
headsets. However, even that would see only one in three
potential users with a headset by 2010, so the growth
potential seems virtually unlimited.
Who’s Who
Laurel A. Christensen holds a Ph.D. in audiology
and a BA in speech and hearing science.
Before joining GN ReSound in 2003, she was
an associate professor at Louisiana State University
Medical Center for seven years and
director of sales and marketing with Etymotic
Research for fi ve years. She is a member of
the Executive Board of the American Auditory
Society and serves on the AAA International
Committee.
The Future is Wireless
Wireless headsets, the main growth driver, are taking
larger and larger market shares and currently account for
around half of GN Netcom’s offi ce market revenue. Going
forward, growth will be based on the launch of new
wireless offi ce headsets.
“In 2005, our market growth in the United States was
based on the existing wireless GN 9120 model, which
now is more than two years old. The new wireless headsets,
the GN 9350, the GN 9330 and the GN 9330 USB,
are three of the most technologically advanced headsets
in the world, and with the new sales channels in place,
the stage is set for sustained growth,” says Lund, adding
that growth is also predicted to accelerate on the European
market in 2006.
“We’ve made ambitious plans for speeding up growth
in Europe, which is already a major market for us. Our
methods will basically be roughly the same as those applied
in the US, but the effects will not be as dramatic.
The plans include adding more and broader channels,
adding new market-leading wireless products, and adding
resources to all parts of the business, especially sales and
marketing,” Lund explains.
GN ReSound’s Auditory
Research Laboratory in
Chicago. In the foreground
is a model of
an “average person,”
a KEMAR (Knowles
Electronics Manikin for
Auditory Research) used
for standard testing of
hearing instruments.
Hans Henrik Lund came
to GN Netcom in 2000
and was appointed president
in 2004.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
5

No More Quiet Launches
Following up on last year’s successful launch of the ReSound Metrix,
GN ReSound is now expanding its portfolio by introducing two new
products targeting the hearing instrument mid-market. The campaigns
to promote the new devices pick up where the different and attention-grabbing
approach used to launch the ReSound Metrix left off.
6
MARKETING
ReSound Pixel
GN Magazine 1 l 06
The Spring 2005 launch of the ReSound Metrix, the most
advanced high-end hearing instrument on the market,
was the start of a whole new marketing strategy for the
GN ReSound brand. The core of the strategy is to create
an independent profi le for each new product and attract
a lot of attention.
This means spotlighting every aspect of each individual
product. In practice, this strategy requires extensive and
rigorous training of sales staff, product managers and
production and marketing staff. Everyone involved gets a
thorough introduction to the actual product, and everyone
learns how the product should be “handled” right
from production to presentation, sales and other marketing
aspects.
This hearing aid addresses users in the upper half
of the mid-market. The ReSound Pixel stands
out by offering the best sound quality in this
segment, regardless of user surroundings. The
ReSound Pixel uses a 17-band WARP technology,
which provides a high sound resolution.
It features very fast processing time, maximizing the
benefi ts from the other functionalities such as the noise reduction
system and the anti-feedback system. The device was launched on
the North American market in February 2006, and will be introduced
on most other markets in May.
ReSound Plus5
”The orange color is a recurrent theme in the campaign
for the new ReSound Plus5 hearing instrument,” says
Alice Amund Nielsen, vice president of marketing
at GN ReSound.
No More Product Family Launches
“Another important aspect of the new strategy is that
we focus more on not comparing our new products
with existing GN ReSound products. Instead, we will
be more likely to compare them with the competition’s
products,” says Alice Amund Nielsen, vice president of
marketing at GN ReSound.
In other words, GN ReSound has moved away from
the “Product Family Marketing” approach. Instead, new
products will be promoted under their individual names
from now on. Previously, the standard approach was
to name products using numbers, such as “Canta4” or
“Canta7,” and you would refer to the “Canta family of
products.” This “family tradition” made it diffi cult to promote
a new product or a new version, because it would
not be seen as a unique product. Furthermore, it was
necessary to compare with other GN hearing aids, and
the idea was to get away from that. In addition, it was
more diffi cult for both dispensers and users to differentiate
between a new product and an existing GN ReSound
product.
Name and Color Characterize the Product
GN ReSound’s two new hearing instruments, the
ReSound Plus5 and the ReSound Pixel, both appeal
to users in the very wide mid-market segment, so the
two devices do not compete against each other. The
ReSound Plus5 targets the lower end of the segment,
while the ReSound Pixel is for users at the upper end.
“Our products should be easier to recognize than they
have been before. We achieve that by giving them easily
recognizable names, names that mean something,”
explains Nielsen.
This product features the sophisticated anti-feedback system that
amplifi es sound better than competing products in the same
segment without causing high-pitched noise. In addition to the
ordinary closed fi tting solution, the device is also available in an
open-fi tting version. In open-fi tting solutions, the user’s voice
sounds much more natural, and users don’t get the feeling their
ears are clogged. The device was launched on most markets in
February 2006.

The ReSound Pixel name and the campaign suggest
a comparison with photographs.
“On top of the features a GN ReSound hearing instrument
has, the name ReSound Plus5 also refers to
an additional fi ve good reasons why the user will get
an outstanding experience out of wearing the product.
The ReSound Plus5 features excellent sound quality. It
has the exceptional open-fi tting design with a new thin
sound tube; it amplifi es sounds without feedback; and it
measures the user’s sound environment to optimize the
fi t. And in many cases, users will be able to take a hearing
aid home after their fi rst visit to the audiologist,” says
Nielsen. She emphasizes that the ReSound Plus5 campaign
highlights exactly these fi ve aspects.
The campaign is dominated by a deep orange color.
The idea is to link a given color to a specifi c product so it
stands out from the competition’s products and marketing
strategies. The ReSound Metrix marketing took the
same approach, consistently using a green color.
“The ReSound Metrix was green, real green. We practically
‘own’ that green color now,” Nielsen states, and
smiles. “We’ll also end up owning that orange color used
for the ReSound Plus5, just wait and see.”
The ReSound Pixel campaign uses a deep blue color.
The product name suggests a comparison with photographs,
since the number of pixels in a picture determines
how sharp the image is. By transferring the pixel
notion to hearing and the marketing of a hearing aid,
the recipient understands from the pictures that not all
hearing aids are the same, nor is their ability to give users
optimum results. The ReSound Pixel campaign uses two
images of a roaring lion. They differ in their pixel count,
so one is blurred while the other with a higher pixel count
is sharp, symbolizing the fantastic sound quality of the
ReSound Pixel.
GN ReSound expects the two new products and the
attention-grabbing campaigns to help build a strong position
in the mid-price segment, which accounts for more
than half of the overall hearing instrument market. GN
needs to capture a larger share of this crucial market, and
the new products will help create organic and profi table
growth for GN on the international market in 2006.
IP Has Gone Mainstream
Not too long ago, the business community was still talking about IP
telephony as if it were a phenomenon akin to a manned space trip
to the most distant stars of our galaxy, but in just a few years, IP
telephony has become the standard.
Some 50% of the business community’s speech traffi c today is based on IP telephony,
and the global use of IP is growing at decent double-digit rates every year. The people
at US-based Synergy Research Group have studied their crystal ball and project that the
total market for IP telephony will be worth almost USD 11 billion by 2009. Most of that
value will represent equipment, because traffi c charges will be next to nothing. Some
80-90% of speech traffi c will be IP-based by then.
How, Not Why
At GN Netcom, the IP telephony approach targets the business community: i.e. solutions
for businesses moving to IP telephony. This is not something the ordinary employee can
do on his own simply by downloading Skype so the company can make free phone
calls. This is a change that must involve the entire company; it requires both hardware
and software that can handle IP-based telephony for everyone throughout the organization.
In practice, a lot of companies will set up an IP telephony solution that includes hardphones
(ordinary IP-enabled telephones) and softphones (telephony software). A hardphone
offers the advantage that it works exactly like a conventional telephone: it can be
used without the computer being switched on. On the other hand, you always have a
softphone with you on your laptop. It can be used when working at home, at the offi ce
or on a business trip. The phone number is the same anywhere in the world.
In order to get the actual system, the company must consult its IT supplier or telecoms
operator, and typically the project will be managed by the IT department. In this process,
the corporate management will no longer be asking, “Why IP?”, but “How IP?”
Complete Portfolio
GN has seen IP telephony coming for quite some time. GN offi ce headsets are ready for
IP, so our customers can move easily from traditional telephony to IP with GN as their
supplier. In practice, IP telephony will not be a major revolution for users, provided the
transition is handled professionally.
“Regardless of whether our customers have a softphone or a hardphone, they can fi nd
a GN headset for their communication needs. Several of our headset solutions today can
be connected to a PC using a USB cable. The vast majority of GN Netcom products that
don’t have USB built in can be connected using an adaptor like the GN 8110,” explains
GN Netcom Product Business Manager Morten Saabye.
The latest additions are the GN 9350, which can be connected by USB cable or to a
fi xed-line telephone, and the GN 4800, which can be connected to a traditional corded
headset and switch between a hardphone and a softphone, so users need only one headset
for all their telephony needs. GN’s comprehensive portfolio comprises both corded and
wireless headsets, giving businesses all the known benefi ts of using a headset.
“Our headsets provide our customers with the freedom and the advantages of both
IP telephony and conventional telephony. In addition, we have IP products offering better
sound quality that makes them ideal with the PC for ‘sound-intensive’ jobs such as
e-learning, video conferences and webcasts,” says Saabye.
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BUSINESS TELEPHONY
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Source: Synergy Research Group, Inc.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
IP telephony is
expected to account
for almost 90% of all
telephony by 2009.
7

Hearing Instruments
via Denmark
GN is relocating its global distribution center for hearing instruments to Denmark. The move will be a big challenge,
but careful planning and training will make it easier to complete the process.
SUPPLY CHAIN
More Products from China
MANUFACTURING
GN is relocating the
last of its BTE production
to the factory
in Xiamen, consolidating
all BTE production
in China.
8
GN Magazine 1 l 06
The fi rst people to work at GN’s new headquarters in
Ballerup west of Copenhagen moved in at the beginning
of March: the staff manning the global distribution center
for hearing instruments. Construction workers have
worked hard for months to renovate the warehousing
facilities, setting up shelving to hold many small hearing
instruments. The warehouse brings back memories
for several “old” employees: it’s almost an exact copy
Until now, about one-fi fth of GN’s BTE hearing instruments
have been manufactured at the factory in Cork,
Ireland and the rest at the Xiamen factory in China. Now
GN is moving all manufacturing to China. Combined
with the relocation of the Global Distribution Center this
will result in annual savings of DKK 40 million. While the
relocation means that some products will need to be sent
on longer trips than before, transport costs represent
such a small share of overall costs that the difference
is easily outweighed by the lower production costs in
China.
A 15% Increase
For the Xiamen factory, the relocation will mean a 15%
increase of the BTE device output capacity. GN will fi ll
the gap by hiring new staff, so the factory will still be
capable of increasing output capacity through shift work
and expansion.
of GN’s current distribution center in Cork, Ireland. That
facility is now being relocated to Copenhagen in connection
with the shutdown of production in Cork.
Like Moving a Half-Timbered House
Each individual item at the warehouse in Ireland has
been marked by location to ensure that it ends up in the
same place in the new Danish warehouse. More than
Experienced China
Most of the products currently being manufactured in
Ireland are also being manufactured in China.
“We have experience in manufacturing many of the
products that have recently been produced in Ireland. To
date, some of the selected product colors have only been
produced in Ireland, so here in China we will be adding
more colors to our existing product lines. We will also be
taking over the production of the spare parts previously
produced in the factory in Ireland,” says Ken Fay, the general
manager of GN ReSound’s factory in China.
Overall, the factory in China will be manufacturing
an additional 16,000 hearing instruments per month. A
number of employees from production and the production
planning and procurement staff from China have
either recently visited or are in Ireland at this time being
trained by Irish personnel.
Fay expects the Chinese factory to take over all production
from Ireland by the end of April.

The new global distribution center for hearing instruments in Ballerup west of Copenhagen is
empty and ready for the products arriving from the Cork warehouse in Ireland. Anne Grethe
Hansen will make sure that all transactions are recorded in the new center and correctly processed
by GN’s Corporate Accounting department.
10,000 different types of items – corresponding to more
than 120,000 hearing instruments and components
– will be transported to Denmark.
“Even though we’ll be able to handle the move with
just a few trucks, it’s still a lot of products to deal with. It’s
essential that we mark the individual products carefully
so we avoid problems when moving our supply service to
Denmark,” explains Thomas Stig Lundstrøm, the project
manager in charge of relocating production from Ireland
to China and the warehouse and customer service operations
to Denmark. Distribution center customers are
mainly GN sales subsidiaries all over the world.
The move will take place in three stages. The fi rst shipments,
due to arrive at Ballerup at the end of March,
represent about 15% of the inventory: mainly products
that sell in small volumes. Next, two shipments of the
blockbuster products will arrive in April, and all products
will ship from Denmark by the end of April.
Transferring Experience
Before the products can be moved to the new warehouse,
ten new warehouse employees in Denmark will
be trained in GN’s warehouse systems and processes.
Another 20 warehouse employees have been hired;
starting on April 1, they will begin their training in how
to operate the warehouse systems in Denmark.
“Our Irish colleagues have been a fantastic help in the
relocation. The new employees hired in Denmark will be
going to Ireland for a two-week period so the Irish staff
can instruct them on how to run the warehouse and
serve the sales subsidiaries that order products from the
warehouse,” says Lundstrøm.
Prototypes in Denmark
As part of its relocation process, GN will be
setting up a production line at its new headquarters
in Ballerup, west of Copenhagen.
The new site will manufacture the ITE and
BTE prototypes used by the development department
in their work with developing new
hearing instruments, the relocation bringing
production and development under one roof.
“It will be a great advantage to have the
production of prototypes almost next door to
the development department. It will be easier
for the department to have prototypes made
and to use them in the development projects.
Also, it will be easier to test the manufacturing
of a product together with the development
department and to gain experience from
that before we start up actual production of
the new product in China,” explains Johnny
Hansen, director of Global Technical Operations
at GN ReSound.
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“One of the staff from the accounting department in
Ireland will come to Denmark for the inventory to be taken
in May, June and July, once the warehouse has been
relocated, to ensure that everything is in order and that
we’ve transferred the necessary know-how. In addition,
two customer service employees will remain in Denmark
for the rest of the year to make sure that everything is
working perfectly,” says Anne Grethe Hansen, who joined
GN in January of this year. The distribution center relocation
is her fi rst project with the company; after that, she
will be in charge of fi nancial transactions at the distribution
center.
GN will be hiring more than 50 new warehouse,
customer service, accounting and procurement staff in
Denmark as a result of the relocation of the distribution
center.
Moving Closer to Head Offi ce
Initially, the plan is to set up the new registration system
in Denmark as an exact copy of the system currently
used in Cork, just like the warehouse. By the end of
April, everything should be operating in Denmark the
way it currently operates in Ireland.
The distribution center is being moved because production
is being relocated from Ireland to China.
“The geographical location of the hearing instrument
warehouse is not important, because the products take
up relatively little space and transport costs account for
a very small part of the product price. By locating it in
Denmark, we have the advantage of being in the same
building as our head offi ce, and we expect that to generate
synergies in the long term,” says Lundstrøm.
SUPPLY CHAIN FLOW – HEARING INSTRUMENTS AND COMPONENTS
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GN Magazine 1 l 06
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9

Staff input has been essential in designing GN’s new head offi ce.
New GN Head Offi ce:
Built on Staff Input
The fi rst 750 employees will be moving to GN’s new corporate headquarters west of Copenhagen during the summer
2006. Construction is well underway, and the relocation is expected to be completed in the fi rst quarter of 2007.
10
NEW FACILITIES
GN Magazine 1 l 06
In terms of actual distance, it’s only a short move for
most GN employees currently based at GN sites in the
Copenhagen area. However, it is certainly no small task
for the people who are and will be working hard to
complete every last detail over the next few months to
ready the 34,000-square-meter head offi ce. Employees
from GN ReSound’s Global Distribution Center have
already moved in.
A Lot of Employee Input
Facility Manager Pernille Smidt is in charge of making
the move as smooth as possible. She will also get the
overall responsibility for the administrative functions
and operations of the new head offi ce. Clearly, she and
Project Manager Lars Bladt already feel at home here as
they take us through the still unfi nished premises, where
150 workers are putting up separating walls, painting
or installing the electrical wiring. Outside the not-quite-
fi nished offi ce building, a team of construction workers
are preparing the foundation for another offi ce building.
One of the most important parts of this project has
been to listen to input from the employees on the design
of the new head offi ce.
“Shortly after GN acquired the site, we set up a project
board with representatives from GN’s different business
areas. It was important for management to get employee
input right from the start of the project,” says Smidt.
In addition to involving the staff, it has also been important
for GN to create the optimum working environment.
To do that, GN joined forces with JobLiv Danmark,
Denmark’s job health and safety agency. At the request
of GN’s occupational safety committee, JobLiv Danmark
conducted a careful review of the entire project in order
to advise GN on how to identify the best solutions.
Playground for Engineers
The new head offi ce will have state-of-the-art sound
labs and development facilities, so GN developers will
have at their disposal some of the most advanced facilities
available.
“GN employees can look forward to a hypermodern
head offi ce with open and brightly lit offi ce landscapes.
We’re putting care and attention into every detail and
paying the greatest possible attention to employee wellbeing.
IP telephony, wireless networks, a fi tness center
and a number of other facilities will help make GN headquarters
an attractive place to work,” explains Smidt as
she shows us around.
Employees Making On-Site Visits
“Working in an offi ce landscape will be a new thing for
many of our employees. We’ve made a big effort to invite
them out to see their new offi ces so they can see for
themselves that the open landscapes they’ll be working in
won’t be huge, impersonal ones. That helped with a lot of
the people who were a bit skeptical at fi rst,” she says.
For anyone who needs to talk on the phone in private
or hold a meeting, there will be 67 meeting rooms and
more than 50 quiet rooms available.
Intended to Attract New Employees
Niels Wendelboe, senior vice president of Human

Resources, expects the new head offi ce to be a great asset
in the HR work.
“GN has never before had development facilities of
the kind that will be available at the new head offi ce. Together
with the rest of the state-of-the-art facilities, they’ll
play an important role in our efforts to constantly provide
the best conditions for current and new employees,” he
says.
Room to Grow
One of the most diffi cult things has been to take into
account a positive “problem”: the expansion GN is currently
experiencing.
“Since we started out on this project, the forecasts for
how many employees there will be at GN have gone up
and up and up, and, of course, that’s a challenge in terms
of allocating offi ces and other facilities. If it becomes
necessary, though, we’ll be able to build another 30,000
square meters on the site, which has a total area of
114,000 square meters, so there’s room for more growth
ahead,” says Bladt.
Facility manager
Pernille Smidt monitors
the construction project
carefully. She is in charge
of making the move as
smooth as possible.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
11

TICKET TO AN INTERNATI
GN wants to continue to attract more highly qualifi
ed staff. One way of doing just that is to go out
and meet university students in engineering and social
sciences programs and tell them about GN so they have
GN in mind when the time comes for them to look for
a job. GN would like to expand its international working
environment, so at a job fair in Sweden GN invited students
from Lund University to come visit GN at a later date.
A busful of students decided to say “yes, please” to come
take a look at what GN offers: a possible ticket to an international
career. A total of 49 future engineers, their expectations
high, took the GN bus to visit GN in Copenhagen this past winter.
GN introduced itself as a workplace, and the students got an
idea of and some good advice about what it’s like to live in Sweden
and work in Denmark.
GN invited Claes Håkansson from Øresunddirekt,
a fi rm of consultants that advises Danes
and Swedes in the Øresund Region who live
on one side of the Øresund Strait and work
on the other. Among other things, Håkansson
provided information and good advice about
Danish management style, commuting, tax
matters and welfare and social services. The
students had many questions for him.
12
GN Magazine 1 l 06
RECRUITMENT
Many also had a chat with some of GN’s
own engineers. Three employees who
know what it’s like to work in Denmark
and live in Sweden were in especially
great demand with the students. The
three were lively and engaged as they
answered the many questions from students
eager to hear more about the differences
between Danish and Swedish
corporate culture, management style,
and other things.
Of course, it wasn’t just good advice,
questions and information about pay,
working hours, job content and many other
things that interested the students.
They were also interested in the heart of the
matter: the company’s products. GN’s products
attracted a great deal of attention
from the students, who were permitted
to touch and try them and ask technical
questions of the GN engineers at hand.

NAL CAREER
Although they were outnumbered, a number of women
students also found their way to Copenhagen. After
the bus picked them up at Lund University, students
received a GN information pack they could read on the
way to GN. There were refreshments, too, for them to
snack on to accompany the information pack, which
told about six GN engineers and their opinions about
working at GN.
A Swedish engineer at GN ReSound, told the students about his own experiences
working in Denmark. GN’s senior vice president for HR, Niels Wendelboe
(picture), was also there to tell the visitors about GN’s ambitions with respect
to staff and explain, among other things, how important it is for the company
to have an international working environment, with employees from many
different countries and cultures, and to provide its employees with supplementary
education and training.
Sofi a Hedenström is studying
engineering physics. “I’m
here because I’m curious to
hear more about working in
Denmark. As far as I know,
GN is the fi rst company to
hold an event like this. It
sounded exciting, so that’s
why I came.”
Vara Goluguri is studying
IC design. “It’s been an
exciting event, with a lot
of interesting information.
GN’s brochure materials
are good. It’s interesting to
hear about other engineers’
experience with GN and
working abroad. I’d like to
work in Europe for a few
years and then go back to
India to work.”
GN Magazine 1 l 06
13

More Freedom to Do Business
GN Netcom is launching wireless offi ce headsets offering new standards
of sound quality and style also for IP telephony
This is what it looks like
when business is mixed
with pleasure to create
harmony for users.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
GN will be launching three new wireless offi ce headsets
globally in the spring of 2006 under the slogan
“Talk smart. Go wireless.” This will create a whole new
platform of innovative and stylish design that combines
elegance and practical functionality. The popular models,
the GN 6210 and the blockbuster GN 9120, are still
huge sellers, and they will now be joined by the
GN 9330, the GN 9330 USB and the GN 9350.
Most Diversifi ed Portfolio
The GN 9300 series strengthens GN’s portfolio of wireless
headsets for the offi ce market and this will reinforce
GN’s undisputed leadership in this strongly growing
category.
“A few years ago, we saw a lot of people choosing a
corded headset as the fi rst step towards sidelining the
handheld telephone receiver and gaining more freedom
of movement. Now, the trend is that users want even
more freedom of movement. They want to be able to get
up and stretch their back and neck while they’re using
conventional or PC-based IP telephony. That’s why more
and more people are beginning to ‘Talk Smart and Go
Wireless’,” says Anke Mosbacher, GN Netcom vice president
of Global Marketing.
Sound Moves Mountains
The ReSound Metrix was launched in Norway in September 2005, helping to lift GN’s
market share in the fi nal quarter of the year.
14
PRODUCT INTRODUCTION
GROWTH IN NORWAY
Norway’s population of 4.5 million live in an enormous
country of almost 324,000 square kilometers. That leaves
a lot of space to be covered by the 29 hospital-based
hearing centers and some 60 ear-nose-throat specialists
authorized to prescribe a hearing aid. In other words,
Superior Sound and PC-based IP Telephony
When you take a closer look at the GN 9300 series,
you fi nd features that both increase your effi ciency and
enhance your personal comfort. A headset is a working
tool, and ergonomics are essential. Just being able
to let go of the receiver once and for all and make the
headset the core tool for your communications provides
substantial ergonomic benefi ts, especially the problem of
having a sore neck and a sore upper back. Thanks to the
low weight, optimized ear piece and intuitive operation,
the GN 9300 series provides a short-cut to more comfort
and, in turn, better effi ciency.
The acoustic user friendliness, a GN hallmark, is a key
feature of the digital platform. PeakStop, a GN invention,
prevents the so-called peaks from the telephone
system that can be both harmful and uncomfortable. The
GN 9350 with Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and IntelliTone
is one of only two products in the world that
comply with the new EU ”noise at work” directive. The
other is the GN 8210, a digital amplifi er launched by
GN Netcom in the summer of 2004.
The IP telephony compatibility is expected to echo
around the world since this is the current mantra of the
business community. It almost goes without saying that
with the GN 9300 series, you get wireless communication
through IP telephony, as two of the three new headsets
the audiologists affi liated with hearing clinics are a
much-sought-after group of professionals, because they
represent access to users.
Perfect Timing
Like many other countries, Norway has public subsidies
for hearing instruments. Once a year, the manufacturers
conclude framework agreements with the national health
authorities, the Rikstrygdeverket. As a result, the 13
manufacturers and distributors operating in Norway launch
their many new products at around the same time,
i.e. when the annual framework agreements are normally
concluded in July. In 2005, it also coincided perfectly
with the global premiere of the ReSound Metrix: perfect
timing by GN ReSound. And the timing gets even better,
considering the fact that the term of the framework
agreement was extended by six months to the end of
2006. The ReSound Metrix will still be an advanced
The GN ReSound team in Norway enjoying the calm
before the storm ahead of the supplementary training
congress for Norwegian audiologists.

The GN 9300 series provide a shortcut
to more comfort and, in turn,
better effi ciency.
come with a USB plug for easy connection to a PC as well
as revolutionary wideband sound that dramatically improves
the sound quality compated to standard telephone
transmission. Anke Mosbacher is confi dent that the GN
9300 series will be a big success.
high-end product then, unlike some of the competition’s
hearing instruments.
“We have an excellent situation in Norway right now.
We’re seeing a steady upward trend in ReSound Metrix
sales, and we expect that the BTE-model with the new
tubes for open fi tting, which was introduced in Norway
in January, will boost sales even more. In addition, sales of
our previous top seller, the Canta7, are declining at a somewhat
slower pace than we had anticipated,” says Tove
Gjennestad, who heads up GN Resound in Norway.
Even though the Norwegian market does not generally
grow by leaps and bounds, GN ReSound succeeded in
boosting the size of the market by a fair margin when it
launched the ReSoundAIR and the ReSound Metrix. The
three Danish manufacturers GN ReSound, Oticon and
Widex are the market leaders in Norway. Other players
are Siemens (Germany) and Phonak (Switzerland).
Making the Best Sales Pitch
Presenting new products to customers, in this case hearing
centers and private hearing clinics, requires meticulous
planning, because getting the customers’ attention
is essential. All the sales reps practically camp out on
their customers’ door steps, quite simply because there
is a limit to how many sales calls customers will make
time for.
When launching the ReSound Metrix, GN solved
the problem of the clinics being spread out over large
INTELLITONE
IntelliTone reduces noise on incoming calls and it provides automatic limitation of the
time-weigthed average noise exposure during a workday. IntelliTone is made possible
thanks to DSP.
distances by inviting customers to attend presentations
and software training in all the major cities. At the supplementary
training congress for audiologists held every
two years in Norway, GN also demonstrated the ReSound
Metrix more than 30 times in just two days, presenting
the customers with the entire concept of product range,
fi tting software and all the new features. Perhaps most
importantly, the presentation also included an authentic
and a realistic demonstration of the sound the ReSound
Metrix provides, representing the sum of all GN’s innovation.
“When we launched the ReSoundAIR, I sensed a huge
motivation throughout our organization because this
was a whole new concept that had clearly been missing
in the market. I felt the same sense of enthusiasm at the
ReSound Metrix launch. Everyone, not least our customers
and users, could literally ’hear’ how much sense this
product makes. I know it’s been said before, but the fi rst
comment from both customers and users was ‘fantastic
sound.’ That’s just an excellent sales pitch in a market
where a lot of customers are prepared to pay to get the
best sense of hearing possible,” says Gjennestad.
She predicts that the gradual move from the Canta7
to the ReSound Metrix will continue. “The Canta7 has
become more attractive pricewise for the broad mid-market
segment, and that will extend its lifetime. Slowly but
surely, the ReSound Metrix will capture the high-end of
the market,” she says.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
15

Bluetooth ® in Stereo
Groundbreaking Bluetooth headset from Jabra can play music in hi-fi stereo and act as a wireless hands-free cell
phone, too – all at the same time. The new headset has been launched in the United States and Europe and are
literally music to the ears of its users.
NEW PRODUCT CATEGORY
The Jabra BT620s
GN Mobile Striking the Chords
The market for mobile headsets is gradually reaching the degree of maturity where wireless headsets are an
everyday part of street life. GN Mobile does what it can to promote this development.
No one can claim that the market for Bluetooth
headsets is a stagnant one. Market forecasts
indicate high growth rates, and the most recent
projections predict that the volume of units sold
will triple in just three years’ time. Global sales
of Bluetooth headsets are expected to reach
180 million by 2010, and GN Mobile will hold a
considerable part of that market, supported by
an extensive portfolio of Jabra products. Some
35% of all headsets sold today are supplied by
GN Mobile, either under GN’s own Jabra brand
or as OEM.
The market is being driven by powerful forces.
One important lever is the surging growth in
16
MOBILE HEADSETS
GN Magazine 1 l 06
There is an air of science fi ction about the Jabra BT620s,
as the new headset is called. Designed in the “behindthe-neck”
style, its backband keeps the speakers on the
ears. The microphone is concealed next to one of the
speakers, which looks just like a fl ying saucer with its
blue backlight. Behind the modern high-tech design are
a number of features that GN Mobile has never before
assembled in one headset.
On the Beat
At GN Mobile, home of Jabra products, they see music
as something both well-established and undergoing a
huge revolution at the same time. The fi rst generations
of MP3 players are being replaced by new and more
advanced devices. Cell phones now have music players
built into them, and the Internet is the world’s biggest
jukebox. Everyday, consumers of all ages use products
that connect to an audio source, right from telecommunications
and computer games to e-learning and music.
In other words, the days when you were just happy to
have sound coming out of the speakers are over. Today,
the demand is for good sound – really good sound, in
fact.
“The MP3 generation is our main motivation for developing
the Jabra BT620s in a stereo version and giving
it an attractive design,” says Jens Lyngaa, the project
manager of the development project. “They talk a lot
on their cell phones; they constantly listen to music, and
they want to be in touch with the world. They also de-
the number of cell phones featuring Bluetooth.
Legislation in 37 countries banning people from
using a handheld cell phone while driving is also
supporting the general use of hands-free solutions.
At the same time, the hands-free lifestyle
is spreading to more and more groups of people
who also use PCs, MP3 players and other multimedia
devices. These trends help to promote
change and push the conventional market for
hands-free Bluetooth solutions to new heights.
Being Visible on the Market
At GN Mobile, they know that being visible on
the market is essential. It is not enough to have
Jabra products appear in catalogs and advertisements:
consumers need to see hands-free
headsets in stores, too. In many retail outlets,
mand good design and high-quality sound, and the Jabra
BT620s delivers on all of that.
“The sound quality is second to none, because the
wideband technology we use gives us a very broad range
of sound frequencies to work with, and we optimize the
sound resolution by using intelligent DSP (digital signal
processing), a core skill at GN.” Lyngaa points out that its
excellent sound quality also makes the headset ideal for
hooking up to a computer, whether for business or pleasure.
The Jabra BT620s can be used for IP telephony as
well, and it is wireless, both key factors driving growth on
the offi ce headset market.
And User Friendly, Too
GN Mobile has consulted all the major cell phone manufacturers
to ensure that the new headset is compatible
with all the leading cell phones on the market. A
whole range of MP3 players, PCs and software products
have been tested with the Jabra BT620s, because even
though they are all Bluetooth compatible, there are still
many details about the individual products that have to
be tested and adjusted.
“I think we can more or less claim to have produced
the world’s most compatible headset. Adapting it to being
able to work with so many different units ranging from
MP3 players and cell phones to computers was a challenge
in itself during the development process. Still, we gave it
priority, because now we can gain access to new markets
through the Jabra BT620s and similar products and be-
headset products are kept under lock and key in
glass displays to prevent theft. Today, headsets
are too diffi cult to access in the stores. When
consumers can’t touch them or try them on,
they don’t feel as great a need to own them.
“This is something we need to change in
2006. In a Danish store, the staff put three
Bluetooth headsets on display in the cell phone
section. They also put up a mirror, giving the
customers a chance to see themselves wearing
a headset. The store more than tripled its sales,”
explains Cecilia Lindgren, global PR & event manager
with GN Mobile.
This is the kind of fairly simple example that
convinces her that it takes equal parts of creativity
and hard work to conquer the potentially
huge market for Bluetooth headsets. She has a

come the users’ preferred supplier of sound for personal
communications and entertainment,” says Lyngaa.
The Jabra BT620s’s operating buttons signal what it’s all
about: entertainment and personal communications. The
phone features are operated from the left speaker and
the button to control the music is on the right one. The
user hears the sound in both ears in hi-fi stereo when the
music is playing and in a clear mono sound in both ears
when using the phone.
In-House Skills
Lyngaa explains with a note of pride in his voice that the
entire project was developed using resources already
lot of ideas up her sleeve, but she is not about
to reveal them to the competition by going into
detail here.
Lindgren will say, however, that the main
goal in 2006 is to become as visible as possible
all over the market. “GN Mobile headsets are
sold in 57 countries and available in more than
80,000 stores. We have to train and motivate
as many of the employees in these stores as we
can to provide better advice on our products,
to understand the needs of their customers and
especially to allocate more space to our headsets
in their in-store displays. To put it briefl y, we want
to be more visible to consumers so the product
category and our headsets become the pivot of
their personal communications instead of being
considered an accessory,” she says.
Multimedia Man
New trends are on the way in which wireless
isn’t just for talking and hands-free goes with
available at GN. He points to hi-fi stereo sound with
Bluetooth and the very long battery life of the product
category regardless of standby, voice or music mode as
demanding achievements that sent the developers to the
very edge of their capabilities, before they came back
with specifi c solutions.
“We’ve started out with a whole new product category
and have opened a huge potential new market using
the skills we already had in-house. The Jabra BT620s is
Jabra through and through, which of course bodes well.
I’m not going to tell you what we have in our pipeline,
though, only that it could be more of the same type of
thing,” he says with a smile.
more than just telephony. The new generation
of multimedia owners, also called “the MP3
generation,” want more than that. They are
serious users of communications and media
devices. They listen to music, talk on their cell
phones, send text messages and chat; and it
looks like they can do it all at one time. This
generation’s media consumption is paving
the way for a whole new type of headset that
supports all the different media types. For GN
Mobile, this means that a new headset category
is coming to the market. The fi rst of these is the
Jabra BT620s, a stereo headset featured in the
article above.
“Bluetooth in stereo will be huge. GN Mobile
is planning to market a series of new products
under the Jabra brand in 2006, targeting new
customer segments. It will require new marketing
methods to bring the series to market, e.g.
having a presence in new stores, and it will need
to be more visible than what we can achieve
More than ever before,
the Jabra BT620s lets the
music take you away.
through ordinary advertising campaigns. Music
will play an essential role in branding, because
this is where we fi nd the core market for Bluetooth
in stereo,” explains Lindgren.
She adds that other segments such as businesspeople
and Internet game players will demand
better sound quality, which will also make
them part of the overall target group for the new
stereo products.
In January, GN Mobile announced an important
strategic partnership with Klipsch, the leading
US manufacturer of loudspeakers and a company
with more than 60 years of experience in
developing, manufacturing and selling advanced
sound systems. By combining the best skills and
the strongest market positions in sound and
Bluetooth, the partnership creates a platform for
conquering the market for mobile music.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
17

READY, SET,
Is the packaging easy to open? Is the user guide easy to understand? Is it easy to install and adjust the new headset?
When GN Netcom tests the products in a user environment, they capture it on fi lm, using a method inspired by
anthropological studies.
Henriette Sjögreen
Kristensen, 36, joined GN
in November 2002. As
an architect specializing
in industrial and communications
design, she
previously worked with
user friendliness on the
ADtranz train sets to serve
the Øresund Region of
Sweden and Denmark.
She also worked for
Danish industrial conglomerate
Danfoss.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Scene 1. Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
A half total shot of John. He is sitting at his heightadjustable
desk in his offi ce at an IT company. John is
holding a package containing a GN 4150 headset. He
tries to open the transparent box of hard plastic, but
after four unsuccessful attempts he gives up and takes
out a pair of scissors. Opening the package, he scratches
his thumb. Inside the package, a microphone boom arm
sticks out through the cardboard. John is unsure how
he should pull out the microphone. He ends up pulling
it out the front, and the cardboard splits open. He carefully
unpacks the rest of the components and puts them
in a pile on his desk. At no time did he read the instructions
on the package. Total time spent: 2 minutes, 3
seconds.
Scene 2. Munich, Germany.
Tania is sitting at a desk with very little empty space on
it. She is reading the user guide while she tries to click
the headband off the headset so she can mount the ear-
USER STUDIES AT ALL STAGES OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Idea Development
Observing people’s behavior when they use headsets in offi ces, in contact centers,
and in special environments and surroundings. One project study focused on people’s
behavior while they were playing a computer game at an Internet café. This demonstrated
the need for full mobility, hands-free operations and voice-controlled functions,
since the players, being unable to leave the PC during the game, needed to communicate
with the other players, and had to be able to eat and drink without having
a microphone in the way in front of their mouth. User wishes with respect to headset
functionality are also examined in focus groups and through questionnaires in which
participants are asked to rank the relative importance of individual functionalities.
18
Prototypes
hook instead. At fi rst, she tries to do it gently. Then she
uses a little more strength, but it still won’t work. Her
boss comes in and offers to help. First he tries to pull the
pieces apart, then he looks in the user guide, and then
he gives up. Finally, a colleague to the GN observer has
to step in – it doesn’t happen often – and he only succeeds
after a few more attempts and a careful look in
the user guide. Total time spent: 1 minute, 57 seconds.
Ideas for Improvement
“The sequences give a good indication of what it’s all
about,” says Henriette Sjögreen Kristensen, interaction
designer at GN Netcom.
The development department can seem remote from
end users and their everyday situation in offi ces and
contact centers around the world. That’s why GN makes
regular studies of how GN headsets are being used in
user environments.
“That way, we can see our products from the users’
point of view and get new ideas on how we can improve.
Most of the input we take straight back to the shop and
work on,” Kristensen explains.
Testing the packaging, user guides, assembly, connecting and operating the
headsets.
How do users open the package? Do they turn it the right way, and do
they read the information?
Is the user guide readable, easy to use, and is it used?
How do users unpack the headset and the individual parts? How do they
put the parts on the table? Do they mix things up?
How do users assemble, connect and adjust the headsets?

RECORD!
The unpacking scene shows how the individual headset
parts should be packaged and how much of the headset
should be preassembled. The tests show the order in
which the components are unpacked and whether users
follow the instructions. The results are then used to design
the packaging and to mark the different parts of the
headset. The second example shows that what may be intuitive
to the product developers during the design phase
may not be intuitive to the user.
“One very important area is instructions and user
guides. Are they easy to read? Do users follow them?
And do the users assemble and install the headset the
way it was intended? We’ve gotten a lot of good ideas
for improvement this way,” she says.
Without Filter
Non-interference is a basic principle when you observe
users. They must do exactly what they would have done
if they weren’t being observed.
“We fi lm the entire process, jotting down notes as we
go along, and ask detailed questions afterwards. That
way, we get different input than we would from focus
Daily Use
Studies to follow up on the everyday use of a headset, typically a month after it
was bought.
How do users wear the headset? Is it easy for them to put on their head or ear?
Do users wear the headset in a different way now than they did at the start?
How do users operate the headset during a phone call? Have they changed the
settings? What functionalities do they use?
Is the sound satisfactory? Do they use the charger?
Did the user save the box and the user guides? Have they used the user guide?
groups, for example, where the things that come out
are the user’s acknowledged needs and conscious behavior.
Using the observation method, we experience real behavior
directly, without a fi lter,” explains Kristensen.
Field Work
Since 2003, GN Netcom has completed more than 100
user studies on users in Germany, the UK, Sweden, Denmark
and the United States. In many cases, design department
staff or the person in charge of the user guide sit in
on the interviews to get a fi rst-hand impression of users’
everyday situations and experiences with their GN Netcom
headsets. The results of the many user tests are reported to
all the groups and departments involved at GN Netcom, for
example through workshops, to make sure that the results
are used in the ongoing development efforts.
“So far, we’ve used observation studies in selected projects,
but with the good results we’ve been getting, we will
be using this method regularly in the various stages of the
development process so our design and development efforts
will be even more fi rmly rooted in the everyday user
situation,” says Kristensen.
Current Products
User studies of both current and new users, with an emphasis on packaging,
user guide, assembly, connection and operation, just like in user studies of prototypes
and everyday use. These studies show whether there is a need for more
adjustments to current products, and they provide inspiration for new products
and functionalities.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
19

Jabra is taking a new approach in its marketing in 2006, making greater use of PR, product placement and opinion
makers. TV-stars Kiefer Sutherland of “24”and Jennifer Garner of “Alias” and many other entertainment business
notables will be making Jabra a better-known name in the US.
20
MARKETING
JACK, JENNIFER AND
GN Magazine 1 l 06
“With the new Jabra JX10, Jabra BT160, and Jabra
BT620s headsets and the Jabra A320s Bluetooth stereo
adapter in 2006, Jabra from GN Mobile will be taking a
big step into new product categories. This makes it more
important than ever for us to be creative and innovative
in our marketing activities and in fi nding effective ways
to reach – and convince – these new target groups,
because we’re up against some very well-established
brands on these markets,” says Heidi Adams, director of
marketing for Jabra in North America.
PR and Product Placement
“The marketing of Jabra in 2006 will be different from
our competitors’ in a number of ways. For example,
we won’t be advertising very much in the mass media.
Instead, we’ll be emphasizing PR activities and product
placement, that is that our products will appear in a
Heidi Adams is in charge of Jabra’s
PR, advertising and marketing
activities in North America. Before
she came to Jabra in 2001, she held
a number of executive positions
with Sony Computer Entertainment
America, where she was part
of the team behind the launch of
the PlayStation.
number of different contexts, e.g. TV and movies. We
will also be making use of social sponsorships, opinion
makers and point-of-sale activities. The individual activities
will support each other and together increase
people’s awareness of the Jabra brand and the individual
products,” Adams explains.
This year, Jabra will be seen on the screen in more than
ten prime-time television series in the US, e.g. in FOX’s
Emmy and Golden Globe award winning “24”, with
Kiefer Sutherland in the leading role as Jack Bauer, and
the popular CBS series “Alias” starring Jennifer Garner.
Jabra will also appear in several nationwide TV shows like
ESPN2’s “Mobile Gadgets” which presents the latest cell
phone and mobile music products, and the HBO series
“Entourage”, recently nominated in two Golden Globe
and three Emmy categories. Jabra also wants to be visible
at events broadcast on television and at music awards
shows such as the MTV Music Awards.
Opinion Makers
The Jabra Brand will also be part of a long string of
events at retailers, among others a special designer
clothing event at Bloomingdale’s in New York City sponsored
by Men’s Health, one of the fastest-growing American
magazines for men. At events like this, Jabra will
come into direct contact with a highly attractive group
of active consumers who are interested in technology

JABRA
and have a great deal of purchasing power, and who are
important opinion makers as well.
Over the years, GN Mobile has built up a network of
endorsers of their products on shows on national television
that inform viewers about the latest products in
personal communications, electronics, music, fashion
and other areas of interest. This year, GN Mobile will be
expanding its involvement, with a special emphasis on
shows aimed at women, young people, and music lovers.
“Using celebrities from TV, fi lm, fashion and music is a
good way to get attention and create interest in our products.
We will be combining it with an aggressive media
approach that will ensure the Jabra brand a solid foothold
in the new product categories,” Adams says.
New Channels
Today, GN Mobile is a respected provider of innovative
communications products on the mobile market. With its
new Jabra BT620s Bluetooth stereo headset, Jabra is moving
into the audio-stereo product category. The company’s
recent partnership with Klipsch, one of the world’s leading
manufacturers of quality speakers, will give Jabra products
improved music reproduction, and this will allow Jabra to
expand its position on the mobile music market.
“Our challenge will be to obtain the same position in
this category as we already have on the mobile headset
market, both with consumers and retailers. This will
require new sales channels, new media and new marketing
initiatives. Among other things, the music world and
media like MTV and American music magazines Rolling
Stone and VIBE will play an even more prominent role,”
Adams explains.
Show Who You Are with the Jabra BT160
The Jabra BT160 is based on the concept of developing a
functional, smart and fun headset. The 33 different covers
available let users dress up their Jabra BT160 headset to
suit their mood and personal style. With colors and patterns
like red velvet, leopard, zebra and ladybug, there’s
something for any style and taste. You can even make
your very own cover design.
The wireless Bluetooth headset weighs 16 grams; it has
up to 110 hours of talk time and up to 110 hours of
standby time.
Jabra BT500 Wins “Best of CES” Contest
The Bluetooth Specialist Interest
Group (SIG), a group of leading
manufacturers in the telecommunications
and information technology
sectors, chose the Jabra BT500 as the
winner in the Headsets category in
the “Best of CES” Contest. The award
is given to the most innovative and
user-friendly Bluetooth compatible
products on the market in seven different
product categories.
The “Best of CES” Contest was held
during the 2006 International Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) in
January in Las Vegas.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
21

The visitors gathered around the many new GN headsets.
GN Territory at
Hanover
With more than 20 of its newest products represented at the world’s
largest electronics fair, CeBIT, GN demonstrated it still has the most
comprehensive and newest range of headset solutions in the industry.
22
ELECTRONICS FAIR
GN Magazine 1 l 06
This year, the people representing GN at the CeBIT fair in
Hanover, Germany, felt an extra sense of confi dence. Their
good mood had its origins in the company’s newly won
position as the world’s largest manufacturer of headsets,
with a product portfolio that leaves most competitors a
step or two behind.
The second visitors stepped onto GN Mobile’s and GN
Netcom’s shared stand, it was clear that they were in GN
territory. The 200-square-meter stand was a tour de force
of magic and strength in a powerful demonstration of
colorful design with a shared theme. Together, GN Netcom
and GN Mobile offer headsets for everyone – at the offi ce,
at home and on the move. Attracting the many visitors was
the opportunity to pick up a number of the products and
try them out.
“As usual, we had invited customers and business relations
from near and far to come to CeBIT, and we had a
lot of advance interest. Our visitors were clearly not disappointed,”
says GN Netcom’s global event planner Tina
Demant.
Multiple Purposes
“GN had a multi-faceted agenda for being at CeBIT. It’s
all about exhibiting your products, strengthening your
relationships with important customers and strategic
contacts, and creating new contacts that will eventually
bring in more sales and create brand attention. In terms
of strategy, it’s about positioning GN as the world’s lead-
ing headset manufacturer,” explains Marianne Bentsen,
regional channel marketing manager at GN Mobile for
Jabra EMEA.
And there were plenty of products to exhibit. GN
Netcom had set up a number of product demonstrations
ranging from the categories of headsets for IP telephony
to wireless offi ce headsets and multi-use headsets. Visitors
to the GN stand were allowed to test the products,
which meant they could make an IP phone call using the
latest wireless headset, the GN 9350, which is expected to
become a top seller just like the GN 9120. They also had
a chance to try the newly-launched GN 2100 hi-fi stereo
headset, as well as the multi-use headsets that can be used
both for PC-based IP telephony and with ordinary telephones
such as the GN 9350.
The Latest Technology
GN Mobile had 15 of its most recent Jabra products on
display at the fair, right from the conventional mono
headset to the new category: stereo headsets for music.
This is a market where Jabra is clearly dancing to the right
tune with the latest technology.
“We’re working to become a leading brand on the
mobile music market, and CeBIT represented an ideal opportunity
to launch our new series of products to music
lovers. For example, we introduced the Jabra BT620s and
the Jabra BT325s, a wireless and a corded headset for cell
phones, MP3 players and PCs. And just like we expected,

they were both a big hit, although the Jabra BT620s wireless
stereo headset was clearly the favorite,” says Bentsen.
Among the mono headsets, it was no surprise that the
Jabra JX10 designer headset attracted a great deal of attention,
but the Jabra BT160 with its 33 different color
combinations and the possibility to create your own cover
design was also very popular.
Half a Million Visitors
The 50-odd GN employees at the CeBIT fair worked some
long, hard days, but they can look back on the event with
pride and satisfaction. GN clearly had the largest and
most extensive selection of headsets at the fair, attracting
a lot of interest from ordinary visitors as well as prospective
customers and distributors. When the fair closes,
more than half a million visitors will have gone through
the turnstiles, 6,300 exhibitors from 70 countries have displayed
their products, and 10,000 journalists from most
parts of the world have covered the huge event.
Tina Demant (left)
and Marianne Bentsen
at GN Netcom and
GN Mobile’s shared
stand.
The new GN 9300-series attracted a great deal of
attention.
Finance Calendar
Annual General Meeting ................... March 21, 2006
Capital Markets Day, Bloomington .........April 5, 2006
Interim Report 1/2006 and
GN Magazine ......................................... May 9, 2006
Interim Report 2/2006 and
GN Magazine ...................................August 16, 2006
Interim Report 3/2006 and
GN Magazine ................................ November 6, 2006
Upcoming Trade Shows
Gartner Wireless & Mobile Summit,
London, UK ...........................................April 2, 2006
AAA,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA ................April 5, 2006
Salone Internazionale del Mobile,
Milano, Italy ...........................................April 5, 2006
GN Magazine is published by GN Store Nord A/S, Mårkærvej 2A,
PO Box 249, DK-2630 Taastrup. Tel: +45 72 111 888. This publication
is available in Danish and in English, In the event of any discrepancies,
the Danish version shall be the governing text.
Website: www.gn.com. E-mail: info@gn.com.
GN Magazine is issued three times annually to shareholders and
other interested parties, etc. Reproduction permitted with permission
and acknowledgement of source.
Editorial team: Lene Christoffersen (editor in chief), Eva Aas
Søndergaard, Morten Kjellev, Charlotte Holk Kristiansen, Peter Kruse
and Bottomline Communications A/S. Photos: Steffen Roland and
others.
Design and production: Boje & Mobeck as. Printing: PrintDivision.
The Bluetooth word mark and logos are owned by the Bluetooth
SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by GN Netcom is under
license.
GN Magazine 1 l 06
23

Living Locally, Working Globally
Cecilia Lindgren lives in Sweden, but
she crosses the Øresund Bridge to
Denmark every day to work at
GN Mobile in Copenhagen.
Cecilia Lindgren has a degree in international economics
and strategic communications. She joined
GN Mobile three months ago to take over global
PR and events, but she already feels at home. That’s
probably because she has spent her entire professional
life working in telecommunications for international
companies. She has always worked in public
relations and events, and she has held positions with
international businesses such as PR agencies in London
and Stockholm, telecoms operator Orange, and
Ericsson, the telecommunications giant. At Orange,
she learned branding from the ground up; at Ericsson,
processes and products. Both positions prepared
her for the job she now holds with GN Mobile, where
branding is a key concept and processes are necessary
to manage the strong growth and the internationalization
process.
Bluetooth is very special to Lindgren because she
helped promote the technology to telecoms industry
stakeholders almost before the fi rst chip left the factory.
When she joined GN, it was sink or swim right from
the start, when she was put on the team representing
GN at the CES electronics fair in Las Vegas in January.
That didn’t discourage her, however; on the contrary,
she is very excited about working in the fi eld, meeting
the press and other stakeholders to tell them about
Jabra and the mobile future. “It’s out in the fi eld you
pick up inspiration and where you build up your network.
That’s always been extremely important to me,”
she says.
Working in an international business with a global
mindset is very appealing to her. She points down the
aisle to her colleagues from Ireland, France, Sweden,
Spain, Germany, Croatia and Denmark. There have
been no cultural clashes between Swedish and Danish
traditions and work methods: GN Mobile’s corporate
culture is neither Danish nor Swedish. “International”
is probably the best way to describe the dynamic and
open corporate culture at GN Mobile, one of the
Danish companies in which English has become fully
accepted as the corporate language because of the
many nationalities of its employees.
Lindgren feels privileged that she can continue living
in her house in southern Sweden and go to work with
virtually the whole world as her market only an hour’s
drive away. “That way, you can be local and global at
the same time,” she says.
24
INTERNATIONAL COMPANY
GN Magazine 1 l 06