Job losses on Navman's radar

Jobs are being lost at Kiwi navigation technology company Navman as US owner Brunswick cuts costs in an increasingly competitive market.

Dan Kubera, director at marine and leisure products giant Brunswick, said up to 5 per cent of Navman's employees could be made redundant from positions across all departments.

The company employs more than 600 people at sites in Auckland and Christchurch.

Cutbacks have also been made across Brunswick's New Technologies (BNT) business unit at a corporate level and at operations in Germany and Indonesia.

The moves are part of a review which began this year.

"Until now, BNT's Pacific Rim operations have been largely untouched but this action was, nevertheless, unavoidable," Kubera said.

The global market in which BNT competed had changed during the past four years.

"The number of competitors has ballooned, while the pace of technological development has been blistering."

The company's response was to refine strategic focus, re-examine global operations to improve efficiencies, raise product quality and trim costs.

Kubera said the focus was primarily on new product launches.

"While we continue to do R&D ... our primary focus right now is making sure we have things ready for the all-important fourth quarter."

Brunswick put most of its BNT division, including Navman, up for sale earlier this year, with analysts pricing it from between US$300 million and more than US$500 million.

Navman was founded by Peter Maire as Talon Technology in his Auckland garage in 1986 and grew to be a $400 million business. Maire sold the business to Brunswick in 2004 for $108 million and stepped down as chairman before last Christmas.

Kubera said the company would help with severance and in identifying job opportunities for employees made redundant.

"This is a bitter pill to swallow for BNT and our employees," he said. "It was not a decision made easily and, while the vast majority of our employees remain on the job, we know this action will bring hardship to some fine people."

It was not expected the cutbacks would have any significant adverse effect on the company.