Weissburg Says Decision to Leave D&M Was ‘On My Terms’

"It was an interesting run,” Weissburg said of his D&M service over seven years and four months. “I had a great time at D&M. I learned a lot.” He enjoyed “building up the company,” which “weathered” the economic crisis in 2008 and 2009 and “had a great 2010,” he told us. He also thinks he “put together a good management team in North America,” he said. “The industry will continue to see great things from D&M.” Still, “I left on my terms,” he said. “After almost seven and a half years, I decided that the company’s in great shape and it was time for me to move on to the next chapter and hopefully I can help another company build their business over the next several years."

Weissburg doesn’t know what that next chapter will be, but he wants to stay in the CE industry and in the New York metro area, he said. Weissburg landed the D&M job after he opted not to relocate with Sony to San Diego from northern New Jersey. “Right now my plan is to relax for a while, take the rest of the summer off and see what opportunities are out there in the market,” he said. “I'm leaving all my options open right now. I left under great terms. I didn’t get fired or anything like that. It was something I wanted to do."

Weissburg said again that he had committed to D&M two years ago that he would stay on after Vic Pacor left as CEO (CED March 25/09 p1). But leaving now was “completely independent” of his commitment in 2009 to stay, adding he hadn’t given D&M at Pacor’s departure a July 2011 hard date when he, too, would resign. He stayed on then because “we were going through the financial crisis,” he said. “I held on. We got the company through a very difficult time as everybody knows.” The custom installation and CE industry “overall were very impacted, but we weathered the storm, we got through it,” he said. “So now I feel like I'm leaving on top. I left the company in really, really good shape and in good, capable hands."

Weissburg had been “pondering” the decision to leave “for a couple of months,” he told us. “Timing” had more to do with pulling the trigger now than any provocation to leave, he said. “I feel like our business is well set for the new year,” he said. “We've got good momentum going, and this was a good time for me to move on. I think the best time to leave a company is when it’s doing well, not when it’s at the bottom. I stuck with it, and built a good solid team. We went through a lot of change. But at the end of the day, it was good for the employees, it was good for the company. We were able to build our business.” Denon is now America’s top-selling AV receiver brand, having moved up from the No. 3 position only two years ago, he said. Marantz is “on an upward growth curve right now” and Boston Acoustics is “recovering well,” he said. “The company is profitable. It’s certainly a vast improvement over the last couple of years."

Undeniably, in CE, there has been “a big shift in where the business is being done,” and it’s shifting away from independent specialty retailers, said Weissburg, who two years ago said it was critically important for specialists to pick up at least some of the business left behind by Circuit City’s demise. “The strong specialists who run their businesses in a way that is commensurate with the profit margins … I think are going to survive, and many of them are doing well,” he said. The survivors are “keeping their costs controllable and creating a diversity of mix, you know, not just televisions.” Still, “I don’t see a lot of growth in that channel until we see the housing industry improve,” he said.

Under his watch, D&M “absolutely” stuck by independent specialists, Weissburg said. “We created a diverse distribution base, but never ever lost our focus or support for the AV specialty channel.” To his knowledge, he said, nothing at D&M will change in terms of the company’s level of support for AV specialists. “I've had no indication that anything like that will change,” he said.

Weissburg thinks for audio companies to survive in the future, they'll need to diversify and expand into “growing adjacent categories of audio.” He said those categories might include sound solutions for mobile devices or various wireless or networking technologies. “Clearly, audio is not declining, audio is just evolving,” he said. Weissburg doesn’t deny that audio has lost much of its cache as a hobbyist pursuit, but thinks “it’s a cycle.” “I believe that quality audio is on the rise and it'll become more important” to iPhone and iPad users, he said. “I think better-quality audio is going to be a wave that we're going to enjoy in the future. That may not be through traditional products, but it’s certainly going to change in the future.” That services like Pandora and Spotify are now ubiquitously available through smartphones need not be viewed as a nail in the coffin for the audio business, he said. “The more devices that provide better-quality sound, the better it is for the audio business,” he said. “I don’t see that hurting audio. I think it enhances audio."

Retailers we canvassed for reaction Monday overwhelmingly expressed regret for Weissburg’s departure and worries about who D&M might tap to replace him. In announcing Weissburg’s departure, D&M said it would look internally and externally in searching for his successor. “We'll probably never know what the real reasons were for Bob’s leaving, but the more important question is who takes his place,” one independent retailer said. “If we get some kind of corporate hack from outside the industry, it will to me speak more volumes about which direction they are going versus somebody that is well respected. Bob’s shoes are going to be big to fill.” After Pacor’s departure two years ago, Weissburg was “the common denominator and dealers trusted him,” said another retail executive. “In spite of all the changes that were going on behind the scenes, you knew you had a steward who understood the dealers,” the executive said of Weissburg.