Continuing on that topic, company founder Uli Behringer said he plans to distribute shares to long-time employees as a way to “share the wealth and thank them for their hard work.” Behringer certainly gave back to its employees during the four-hour anniversary celebration via lotteries. Several of the nearly 3,000 Chinese employees in attendance took home cash prizes.
There’s no question a happy worker is a productive worker. And there’s no doubt living right next door to the workplace improves productivity. “Traffic was a killer,” or “My car broke down,” are obviously not phrases you will ever hear from employees.
But even more important, according to Deeb and Fraser, is the employees are a perfect fit for the company’s goals. But why was Zhongshan a perfect fit for them? Did they consider other locations for Behringer City in China and other countries? “That was a tough decision, because of course, you have to cut costs,” said Deeb. “We had to look at the whole supply chain. We also had to look at which ports are close by to ship from. Are they shuttle ports or are they deep ports? In other words, do they have to go through barges and then through another deep sea port? Would we have to find new staff and train them or could we retain current employees? We went through all of that. We considered many places. We got the deal we wanted here. This location helps us to keep the costs low as well as keep the quality high.”
As an addendum to the previous comment, Zhongshan is within about a half-hour drive of a ferry port. From there, you can get to Hong Kong International Airport in one hour and 10 minutes and Hong Kong’s Kowloon province in one hour and 30 minutes.

Happy Anniversary
Let’s get back to the key highlight for the employees, Eurotec’s four-hour anniversary party. The party took five months of planning. According to Deeb, “This was a way to say to our employees, ‘Hey guys, you’ve really done well. This is a milestone. You should be proud.’ We also wanted to share this with our customers and the world. That’s why we invited the press.”
Before media and dealers even walked into the catering hall, guests were serenaded by a band. Dealers and members of the media walked into the catering hall in a procession style. They were greeted by a standing ovation from the Eurotec employees.
When the party started, there were speeches by Behringer and Deeb, translated from English to Chinese of course, and then out pranced dancers, singers, a fashion show, and even a “Mr. and Mrs. Eurotec” contest. That was combined with a traditional Chinese feast of Miso soup, lamb, duck, beer, etc.
Even the night before the fifth anniversary featured a party, although it was on a smaller scale. But the outdoor dinner started and ended with a bang. Before entering the restaurant, Behringer and Deeb ignited a three-story high firecracker. After the audio/visual display ended, several car alarms hilariously chirped in the parking lot as a response. The dinner ended with a fireworks display. In between was Chinese bamboo pole dancing, where one has to jump back and forth from inside and outside of two bamboo poles constantly moved by two volunteers.

Aftermath
After both nights of parties concluded, Eurotec employees didn’t have much time to relax. Behringer has an aggressive goal of launching 200 products this year. Eighty debuted at NAMM. But how will the company be able to release 120 more products this calendar year? “You have to look at product families. You have to look at platform designs…So in other words, when you design amplifiers, don’t design them individually. Design them around subassemblies,” said Deeb. “This way, you can roll out a lot of new designs very quickly. But very importantly, you also minimize downtime and potential problems because you have the components instead of samples.”
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