UK @RMGNetworks Closes Its Tower42 (Show) Office
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Following on from the news early in the New Year that at least half a dozen UK based RMG Networks’ employees were told on their return to work at the beginning of the year that their services were no longer required, we now have confirmation that their once prestigious London briefing centre and product showcase at Tower 42 is about to close.
All of these layoffs and closures will leave only a handful of staff in their Luton office. By our reckoning, the company will only have the following positions left in the UK; four sales people, one sales manager, two finance people, two BAE people, two content designers and one project manager.
That really is a skeleton staff and surely makes you wonder how RMG will ever be able to successfully deliver any projects in the short to mid term term.
With very good, experienced and long serving employees such as Rob Elkins, a Senior Project Managers who has served the company for 15 years and long serving Senior Lead Engineer Andrew Nurse being some of those let go a few weeks ago, there is a deteriorating amount of experience left in the business locally.
Another departure a few weeks ago was Martin Symes, Director Of Operations at RMG Networks who only joined the company from Ultravision just over a year ago, and someone who has already updated his LinkedIn profile to read “Today I was told my role is going to be made redundant. If any of my contacts are aware of any roles available in either Senior Operations or within the LED display industry that may be suitable, please get in contact”.
Other folks let go this year include a couple of sales people, a support analyst and an AV installer.
It appears to many that the ‘new’ owners of RMG have no interest in investing for the future or indeed stabilising the business. Their current business model seems very much to be, to reduce costs wherever possible, dismiss loyal hard working staff , ensuring of course that those who are left have to work doubly hard.
Interestingly it would appear that Jerry Rosen who was give the poisoned chalice of running the UK operation is ONLY gracing the UK with his presence (the week of January 21, 2019 should anyone care) ONLY after all those who he has dismissed have left. Not meeting those people face to face surely says a lot about the man at the helm of this business.
January 14th, 2019 at 09:34 @440
Sad times for the good people left at RMG. It was always a terrible idea to merge Symon with RMG and an even worse idea to go public. Some very strange fluctuations in share prices in the first few months (who was buying and selling all the volume??) and then it all started to tank.
Charles Ansley leaving was a terrible blow. Bob Michelson becoming CEO was like drilling holes in the bottom of a boat. Some terrible hires, many terrible fires, terrible development efforts and then finally, after 10’s of millions lost, they try to resurrect the Symon name!
Sincerely hope that those people who have been laid off (look at how they fired people in the US with such little notice or pay-off) and made redundant can quickly find jobs where their hard work and loyalty can be recognized.
January 15th, 2019 at 16:27 @727
So many bad and ill-thought-out strategies by RMG over the years since going public. It was clear for the past four years that the board of RMGN did not understand the industry, landscape or markets that it served. Bad product, naive commercials, and a lack of understanding of its own, and competitor positioning led to a failed entry into the mainstream market from its comfort zone niche of Call Centres.
All this led to a cyclic hiring/firing/hiring/firing of sales people when expectations constantly were not met.
The CEO is deluded in his man-solo crusade of trying to sell a mobile App to large corporations for millions of $, and the sheer arrogance of not wavering from that strategy for three years with zero sales is astounding.
As with any company, it’s the employees that make the difference, but with constantly bad strategy, even the dedicated and committed team of RMG employees were always on the back foot.
Such a shame.
January 21st, 2019 at 01:58 @123
Their maintenance contracts are the only thing keeping them afloat at this point. There is no market research into their products/services. None. The CTO decides what the market wants. And the “new” mobile app? They’ve had that since 2006. It didn’t sell then and it doesn’t sell now.
January 21st, 2019 at 22:53 @995
After the recent culls the UK office are left with 1 project manager, 1 software engineer, no director of operations, no UK based support staff and the only UK manager being the finance director how on earth will they cope going forward?