Packard Bell NEC Inc. is trying to sell its 700-employee customer support center in Magna as part of a corporate restructuring that involves retiring the "irreparably damaged" Packard Bell brand.
NEC, the parent of Packard Bell NEC, is in negotiation with several companies that specialize in customer support."The goal there is to sell the call center, which will continue to offer customer service and support to Packard Bell and NEC machines, and transfer those jobs to whomever eventually buys that site," said spokesman Ron Fuchs.
The Magna operation is the Sacramento company's only customer support center. Nearly 200 employees were laid off in June in an earlier corporate work force reduction. Fuchs said it is too early to speculate whether a buyer would continue to operate the call center in its current configuration.
"There are all kinds of variations," he said. "Someone may take the whole site and the building, but it's too early to start talking specifically."
Packard Bell boasted top PC sales in 1996 amid fierce competition from companies like Compaq, Dell and Gateway. It continues as the most popular brand in Great Britain and France and will continue to sell European-made computers there.
"But the Packard Bell brand, as a brand itself, is probably irreparably damaged in the U.S.," Fuchs said. "The Packard Bell name is likely to disappear (here)."
The company took it on the chin for using unreliable components in order to offer low prices on its personal computers. That both damaged the brand's reputation and boosted the demand on customer support.
"The missteps we made several years ago in terms of quality and service -- we've not been able to recover," Fuchs said. "The other problem is we continue to lose money and missed our commitment to shareholders."
Packard Bell lost $650 million last year. The company anticipates 1,600 layoffs in Sacramento by the end of the year. Among those losing jobs will be 12 of the company's 13 senior executives, including chief executive Alain Coulder.
NEC plans to outsource its manufacturing and concentrate on profitable niches. The company will continue to make its trendy Z1, a flat-panel-display PC with a wireless keyboard, which is popular with customers willing to pay more than those looking for the cheapest PC they can find. "The NEC brand has a strong reputation in the corporate market and with its laptops. There will be some attention to the consumer market, but probably through new ways we haven't used much, like (sales) through the Internet," Fuchs said.
IBM announced a similar Internet-only sales plan last month.