Dyson moves vacuum giant's HQ to Singapore

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-dyson-singapore/british-billionaire-dyson-moves-vacuum-giant-to-singapore-idUSKCN1PG205

by adventured • 8 years ago

110 114 8 years ago

reuters.com

jayalpha3• 8 years ago

Dyson, a big Brexit supporter, plans also to build an electric car, in Singapore: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/23/dyson-to-...

By the way, Singapore has an EU free trade agreement.

I respect engineering and entrepreneurship. But he sounds like a hypocrite. I don't consider buying any of his products.

rayiner3• 8 years ago

I don't see the hypocrisy. Does the Singapore-EU trade agreement give EU citizens the right to vote on laws that will be binding upon Singaporeans? Or give EU citizens the right to reside and work in Singapore? If not, there is no hypocrisy in supporting Brexit while relocating to Singapore.

It is disingenuous to portray the EU as merely a trade organization. It may have started out that way, but today it is a supra-national government, capable of binding the citizens of member states to laws those citizens oppose (just as, e.g., the United States federal government can bind citizens of Alabama to laws those citizens oppose). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_(European_Union)

graeme3• 8 years ago

That seems the wrong question. The better question is: why did he stay in britain while it was in the EU, and why is he leaving now that the UK is leaving the EU? Especially as he advocated that leaving would improve trade and industry.

The answer might be as simple as: "Signapore was the right place and we were planning this move before Brexit was on the horizon"

But it certainly gives the appearance that Brexit is bad for business and he doesn't want to operate with the consequences of the policy he advocated.

jashmatthews2• 8 years ago

FTAs aren’t magically more democratic. The loss of control of our own law was a major issue for New Zealand signing the Trans Pacific Partnership.

FTAs also bind countries to laws the citizens may oppose and even if changing a law is OK, it might still result in an expensive investor state dispute at a court of arbitration.

jimnotgym4• 8 years ago

What if I added that the original reason Dyson cited for moving to Singapore was the failure of Britain to join the euro?

That sounds like hypocrisy to me

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/05/theobserver...

jen202• 8 years ago

This is not an isolated incident when it comes to vocal supporters of Brexit. For example, Jacob Rees-Mogg's financial services company recently set up a fund in the Republic of Ireland to ensure continuing access to the European Market [1].

A simple look into Dyson's past (particularly with regards to the "Dyson Academy" in Bath) should tell you all you need to know about the man. His products are mostly garbage too - not a screw to be found.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jacob-...

phyalow3• 8 years ago

I fail to see the proported hypocrisy with Rees-Mogg, of course Somerset Capital would establish an EEA entity, dont forget they have BVI, US and Asian based funds too. have you seen the Dyson hair dryer? Phenomenal product. Who said you need a screw for anything (See the Mathematical Bridge in Cambridge).

rchaud2• 8 years ago

JRM is gunning for Tory leadership, so saying he's pro-Brexit is necessary to pre-empt another Farage-style provocateur from crying "open borders".

Of course they behave differently when it's their own money on the line.

zeroname4• 8 years ago

Where exactly is the hypocrisy? Singapore has been touted as a model on how to organize trade after Brexit.

Of course you want a trade deal with the EU after Brexit. One major problem with being in the EU is that it forces the UK to uphold tariffs and tariff-like restrictions on imports from non-EU countries. Singapore itself has little to no tariffs.

With a hard Brexit, those deals simply won't exist yet, so it's wise to move to place where they do exist.

philbarr8• 8 years ago

The hypocrisy is based on the fact he loudly supported Brexit saying that we would be better off outside the EU because of how awesome the UK could do by itself, before moving everything to Singapore.

He clearly cares not in the least about the UK. I will never buy any of his products ever again.

blibble7• 8 years ago

By the way, Singapore has an EU free trade agreement

this would seem to be irrelevant to today's decision as Dyson ceased EU manufacturing in 2003

today they're moving the legal HQ, with two jobs being relocated

jayalpha3• 8 years ago

Did you read about the car? Why not build it in China?

mcv• 8 years ago

I respect engineering and entrepreneurship. But he sounds like a hypocrite. I don't consider buying any of his products.

I've got one of his products, but I had no idea then that he was like this.

devy2• 8 years ago

I own at 5 Dyson products, most of them from manufacturer refurbished programs (otherwise it's way out of my expenditure range for appliances). They are at best overrated. Take an example of Cyclone Vacuum, the brand newer Hoover cyclone vacs sold at HomeDepot I got last Black Friday for $70 is working as good but it's at least 4x cheaper.

Their air circulation fan/heater isn't as great as 5x of the price tag than competitors. Same with their blowdryers.

In short, they are hugely overpriced. Oh and, they use cheap plastic too - the air vent stand got cracked on winter and again the replacement parts are a fortune to buy.

CaveTech• 8 years ago

Product pricing isn't linear with features/abilities. If you want the best X per $ spent you'll almost always arrive at lower quality version. There are premiums to be paid for even minor improvements.

chaostheory• 8 years ago

They are at best overrated.

Maybe now they are, but at the time Dyson started getting popular, most vacuum cleaners (Hoovers included) were bag based. The Dyson performance felt revolutionary in comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if the Hoover design was based somewhat off Dyson's. I do know that Shark and Dyson had a IP fight a few years back

writepub• 8 years ago

After you bought your first Dyson product, and realized all this, why did you buy 4 others? It appears like their branding and marketing worked as designed, if you bought 4 more of their products, despite the pricing.

BTW - everything you said about Dyson applies to Apple. There's more to branding, pricing & sales than the bill-of-materials and quality

kodablah• 8 years ago

I don't see this as hypocrisy any more than someone accepting a tax cut via policy from a politician they voted against.

In fact, if anything, what Brexit has shown me is that there is one side that only sees things in black and white. You can be against something as a whole but in favor of some parts of it. The EU is a great example where many who champion Brexit may be in favor of shared economic benefits and against not-strictly-economic political costs.

brobdingnagians• 8 years ago

From what I know, even most of the Brexit supporters are supportive of the economic benefits of the EU and would like to keep those, they are wary of the "ever closer integration" with things like the ideas for European Military, which, surprise surprise, popped up today [1]. So favouring Brexit is not the same as wanting to discontinue all relationships or economic incentives; they just don't want to be pulled closer into what the EU could become in the near future.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46908205

fmajid5• 8 years ago

It's very easy to advocate for something when you are not sticking around to suffer the consequences.

jimnotgym4• 8 years ago

I am not all that impressed with Dyson vacuum cleaners vs say Meile. A bit too much form, a bit to little function.

Dyson himself is not one of my favourite people. This move seems very hypocritical.

sleavey2• 8 years ago

There are a couple of YouTube videos from AvE (he takes a bit of getting used to, but he knows a fair bit about electronics) about a Dyson vacuum cleaner [1] and hair dryer [2]. Lots of moulded plastic and glue, little substance. On the other hand, Miele recently repaired an old vacuum cleaner [3] that worked for 30 years before breaking.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPTzNJMd19A

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8

[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34290597

pcurve• 8 years ago

Loved~~ his tear down of Juicero!

sigi45• 8 years ago

Had a wasching machine (like 300 Euros). It broke in a way that the replacement part was only available for 350Euros.

Got a Miele than.

Looking forward to not to have to think about it for the next 10-20 years.

bb1012• 8 years ago

I agree. When our cleaner started with us, we had the latest Dyson vacuum. We asked what she would prefer and she asked for a Miele. The Miele is still going strong ten years later, whereas the Dyson broke sometime after its second repair (lots and lots of brittle plastic).

pkulak• 8 years ago

I don't even understand the premise of bagless being better than bagged. I had a Dyson for a long time and cleaning out that container was always a huge mess. And it had to be done constantly. I've got a Miele now and it's quiet, cleans better, built like a tank, and swapping out the bag takes 20 seconds once every couple months.

unfunco2• 8 years ago

The Dyson urinals I see in pub bathrooms are awful, they spray everything everywhere, a bit too much form, a bit too little function.

sleavey2• 8 years ago

I find if they are mounted at the right height they can be fine. But some are mounted to optimally spray your face with the water from both your own and previous users' hands... disgusting. At least the taps with the built-in Dyson dryers have not taken off - if used with a shallow sink, the dryer just sprays up water from the bowl into your front.

quickthrower22• 8 years ago

Also the hand dryers: You better have precision wrist control or your gonna touch the surface and catch the previous toileteer’s bugs.

RankingMember• 8 years ago

Wait are we talking about urinals or hand dryers? I have yet to encounter a Dyson urinal, but my sense of humor really wants one to exist.

satysin• 8 years ago

I fucking hate those hand dryers. I have large hands with long fingers. I have to contort my fingers, hands and wrists while trying to not touch the edges or dip my finger tips into that disgusting collection of water at the bottom of the dryer.

Utter garbage. Just use the old dryers or paper towels ffs.

ratsmack• 8 years ago

I've never understood the cult mentality in consumer products like Dyson and Apple. There are many very good products that are as good and many times better than these cult products.

As for the move, I'm sure it's profit based for the purpose of cheaper labor or being closer to the target consumer, but only an insider would really know the real reason.

hinkley• 8 years ago

There are many copycats out there. Bagless vacuum cleaners were anemic when the Dyson was new. Thin business quality laptops simply didn't exist (Apple adapted aluminum welding technology from airplane ribs to build the unibody mac book)

hevi_jos• 8 years ago

You must be joking.

Those product are the best products out there. They could be overpriced, yes. But other products "many times better", no way!!

Other products could be cheaper, but better, no they are not.

You can't compare an aluminum laptop with a plastic one, filled with spyware(from vendors and Windows today is spyware too), a screen that is sh*t and a battery that last nothing because the manufacturer has not optimized it like Apple has. Not to talk about the chipset electronics, Apple has a volume that gives them the Upper hand choosing the best components.

duxup• 8 years ago

I felt the same with the Dyson stuff, lots of form and advertising.... but I didn't see the value there.

I ended up buying a Shark vacuum.

djaychela• 8 years ago

My girlfriend's Dyson is miserable to empty - all the girls in the house have long hair, and that makes emptying it a 'shove your hand in and pull the mass of hair and dust out' job, nothing like the way it looks in the advert.

I had a DC-01 back in the day, didn't like it at all as the main part of it that runs on the floor was too tall to get under any of the furniture - unlike the vorwerk that it replaced, and the £30 cheapo standard vacuum cleaner that replaced it (and lasted 3 times as long).

quickthrower22• 8 years ago

I get the cheapest vacuum at Kmart and it works superbly. The “bagless” usp is long dead.

TheOtherHobbes• 8 years ago

We have a Henry, which is far cheaper than a Miele and almost as indestructible.

Dyson is overpriced brightly coloured plastic pretending to be "design." The one we bought had a stupid moulded plug that would fall out of the power socket with the gentlest tug.

It also regularly overheated and shut down for random periods. And it was a nightmare of mess to empty, sending dust everywhere.

A strange company, suggestive of the worst of British opportunism. Apparently there's an old British fighter jet hanging above the canteen in the HQ, but it seems that's just for show when there's more profit to be made by moving to a different country.

jamestimmins• 8 years ago

I can't speak for Dyson as a person, but I have a Dyson handheld that is absolutely phenomenal.

Let's avoid unnecessary pile-ons.

amluto• 8 years ago

The Dyson cordless vacuum is the only Dyson product I have any real respect for. It’s quite good, although I think its main claim to fame is a lack of credible competition so far.

Certainly the Dyson electric hand dryers in retail bathrooms seem to suck even more than the average dryer.

rconti• 8 years ago

I have a cordless dc-44 and really love it. It helps that my house is small enough to clean on a single charge, but its' like the combination of a dustbuster and real vacuum; easy enough to grab for any mess, which means you're more likely to use it regularly. shrug

headShrinker• 8 years ago

He's probably a hypocrite though his reason for supporting the Brexit seems to be around additional EU regulation that squashes innovation. The belief that we are in a time of oppressive regulation is rampant so he's hardly a epicenter for such thinking.

As far as his vacuum design, the Dyson engineering team is superb. Their motors, electronics, programming and bagless designs are miles ahead of anyone else in the industry.

The dyson ball and canisters are lack luster in their class and use cheap engineering gimmicks and too much metallic painted plastic to win over big spending shoppers. The true success story for Dyson is the "motorhead" cordless vacuums. They are skookum.

coolspot• 8 years ago

I can see how people will talk about Tesla in same words some 5 years later.

Spooky23• 8 years ago

They always struck me as the Bose of suction.

Kip9000• 8 years ago

Brexit will only affect the ordinary working class and the poor. The rich who funds this debacle will always have options cope or profit from it.

aidenn0• 8 years ago

Most changes to the status-quo will negatively affect the poor, because they are the most vulnerable.

Barrin92• 8 years ago

This seems to be a typical combination in a lot of countries nowadays. A donor class that advocate for populist policies with well funded advertisement campaigns that speak to the grievances of poor or less educated voters, ("hundreds of millions for the NHS!"), who then promptly pack their bag and leave as reality sets in, because as we all know capital is very flexible.

The misled voters however are not and cannot suddenly pick up a new career in Singapore or in the PR department of a big company, so they will have to foot the bill.

dschuetz• 8 years ago

Wait, he'd rather support another country's economy with his faster growing business than the economy of his own country and earn more money there/elsewhere, while supporting the opposite? Err? No, his statement doesn't make any sense which basically means it's a lie. His decision comes conveniently right after the house vote and May's failure to convince the MPs to take the EU deal. I suppose he is not such a Brexiteer after all.

nbevans3• 8 years ago

He is a Brexiteer who has seen the writing on the wall. That Brexit is being thwarted and the probability of escaping the EU reducing every week. He is a realist and a businessman and a Brexiteer. He would have loved to have seen Brexit realised, I'm sure, but it wasn't to be. As such he now needs to turn his attentions to a Plan B - to secure his businesses in better free trading less bureaucratic locations - in this case Singapore.

jimnotgym4• 8 years ago

He originally said he was moving to Singapore because Britain wouldn't join the Euro!

He seems rather confused..

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/05/theobserver...

yomly2• 8 years ago

Does anyone have any insight it is like to work in Singapore as a developer if you've previously worked in the West?

How are salaries? How is the work culture?

Is the industry growing such that moving there would be a good career play?

rch• 8 years ago

Well, it's the only place where I've had to randomly hand over my passport to guards holding machine guns. Cambodia and Vietnam were much friendlier (although not necessarily safer).

pytester2• 8 years ago

I have.

The salaries are low by western standards. I tripled my income coming back to the UK.

The work culture is shitty. Long hours are routine. Developers are cogs in the machine. The boss is always right. You need to do things by the book.

There's a hard class distinction between "worker bees" (includes developers) and "managers". Those managers were typically clueless about tech, also, which made interviewing a crapshoot.

hnick• 8 years ago

This matches what the people I know said. It will of course depend on the company. Facebook has a significant presence there now, I've only met one person there but they were a local and said it's very atypical of the Singapore experience (the office was nearly empty at 5pm).

jesterson2• 8 years ago

The salaries are low by western standards. I tripled my income coming back to the UK.

This is true. Maybe not three times lower, but salaries are lower comparing to UK/US.

The work culture is shitty. Long hours are routine. Developers are cogs in the machine. The boss is always right. You need to do things by the book.

True. The last sentence applies mostly to local companies.

There's a hard class distinction between "worker bees" (includes developers) and "managers".

As everywhere else.

Those managers were typically clueless about tech, also, which made interviewing a crapshoot.

Disagree. Share of incompetent managers is close to share of incompetent developers. Hiring a skilled, knowledgeable, self-organised developer is very hard. Source: I am a manager :)

Gigablah• 8 years ago

This article should shed some light: http://elijames.org/the-two-tiers-of-singapores-tech-compani...

yomly2• 8 years ago

Thanks for sharing - I guess it's no surprise that Singapore tech salaries would be bimodal...

nbevans3• 8 years ago

The Remainers are desperate to portray this as hypocrisy by Sir James Dyson. It is actually the opposite. He has been moving more and more of his business out of the EU and UK to Singapore over the last 10-15 years and moving the headquarters is the final step. It is a ringing endorsement to what global free trade can do instead of protectionism, over-regulation and misplaced political projects such as the single currency. And Singapore was consistently held up as an example of what Brexit Britain could be like. Sir James Dyson has given up on Britain because, all things considered, he realises it will be many more years yet until a Clean Brexit is realised in the UK. And even then, it could be decades - judging by the displayed ineptitude of our political class - for the UK to catch up on the head start that Singapore has for high-tech.

jimnotgym4• 8 years ago

He already was a hypocrite. His previous excuses for moving manufacturing to Singapore include Britain not joining the Euro (the European single currency). So the timeline

1) "I need to move to Singapore because Britain is not close enough to the EU"

2) "I want Britain to leave the EU"

3) "I am moving to Singapore anyway, so long suckers"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/05/theobserver...

nbevans3• 8 years ago

That was said by him in 2000 - the Lisbon treaty was 2009. In 2000 the only path possible for the UK and EU was "further integration". There was no ability to exit i.e. there was no Article 50.

One can imagine if exiting the EU was possible in 2000 he would have worked that into his comments at the time. As far as he was concerned he had a problem exporting products from the UK because of the strong sterling, most particularly in comparison to the Euro. He needed a solution. Joining the Euro was a possible solution at the time.

The EU also had no trade agreements with countries like Singapore or Japan in 2000 either - or even 2009 for that matter - further reducing his strategic options.

7952• 8 years ago

I think it is unfair to expect a PR strategy to be intellectually consistent. And that is what Dyson is founded on.

Dyson is a ringing endorsement of Britain as a marketing and PR powerhouse. They made people across the world believe a story that sold millions of mediocre vacuums. It is a huge success that we should be proud of. But it has little to do with the virtues that Dyson likes to project.

In that sense it is a good parallel to brexit. A PR blitz designed to push bullshit.

lgleason• 8 years ago

His products used to be good. These days they are over priced, poorly made and fall apart quickly.

ChuckMcM• 8 years ago

I am always amazed at corporate communications that are so inartfully constructed. The two statements "Dyson’s company said the move ... was not driven by Britain’s looming departure from the European Union or tax implications" and "the move was aimed at 'future proofing' Dyson."

As I read it the second statement says "Stuff keeps changing in Britain and we can't be sure its going to be good for our company so we're pulling up stakes." And what has changed recently in Britain, oh I don't know, all the Brexit stuff maybe?

I wish companies would own their decisions but they never do when they can't spin them well.

m0llusk• 8 years ago

I used to do a lot of housecleaning for family and friends and recommended Dyson vacuums for their strength and robustness. Since then I have got into professional housecleaning and have found Dyson vacuums to be a terrible curse. They are aggressively priced which makes people emotionally invested in them beyond reason. They are typically too strong such that even skilled users get overwhelmed and damage fringes and drapes and anything that isn't super strong that gets too close. Although they may have been built to a high standard when introduced current models have many parts made with vulnerable plastic connectors. As such used Dysons tend to be coming apart in various places and tend to be difficult to use because their unusual mass and strength puts extra stress on the small plastic connectors they are built with. If you want to clean up for a reasonable price without a lot of unnecessary complications then staying away from Dyson products is a good first step. If they are going to be charging that much and putting that much design work into them then they should be advancing robustness and ease of repair. For the fraction of a single Dyson I keep a fleet of Sanitaire vacuums working over a period of many years because all of their components are reasonably designed and can be simply swapped out upon failure.

Dyson moves vacuum giant's HQ to Singapore

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