Netgear 2004 Annual Report Download - page 10

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Table of Contents
marketing events. Our marketing department is comprised of our product marketing and corporate marketing groups.
Our product marketing group focuses on product strategy, product development roadmaps, the new product introduction process,
product lifecycle management, demand assessment and competitive analysis. The group works closely with our sales and research and
development groups to align our product development roadmap to meet customer technology demands from a strategic perspective.
The group also ensures that product development activities, product launches, channel marketing program activities, and ongoing
demand and supply planning occur in a well-managed, timely basis in coordination with our development, manufacturing, and sales
groups, as well as our ODM, OEM and sales channel partners.
Our corporate marketing group is responsible for defining and building our corporate brand. The group focuses on defining our
mission, brand promise and marketing messages on a worldwide basis. This group also defines the marketing approaches in the areas
of advertising, public relations, events, channel programs and our web delivery mechanisms. These marketing messages and
approaches are customized for both the small business and home markets through a variety of delivery mechanisms designed to
effectively reach end users in a cost-efficient manner.
We conduct much of our international sales and marketing operations through NETGEAR International, Inc., our domestic subsidiary,
as well as through NETGEAR Deutschland GmbH, a German company, and NETGEAR Japan KK, a Japanese company, each
wholly-owned subsidiaries of NETGEAR International, Inc.
Technical Support
We provide technical support to our customers through a combination of limited permanent employees and an extensive use of
subcontracted, “out-sourcing” resources. Although we design our products to require minimal technical support, if a customer
requires assistance, we generally provide free, high-quality technical advice worldwide over the phone and Internet for a specified
period of time, generally less than one year. We currently subcontract first and second level technical support for our products and as
of December31, 2004 we were utilizing approximately 450part-time and full-time individuals to answer customers’ technical questions.
First level technical support represents the first team member a customer will reach with questions; and, typically, these individuals are
able to answer routine technical questions. If they are unable to resolve the issue, the first level support member will forward the
customer to our more highly trained second level support group. The most difficult or unique questions are forwarded to NETGEAR
employees. This 11 person in-house staff provides the most sophisticated support when customer issues require escalation.
In addition to providing third level technical support, these internal NETGEAR employees design our technical support database and
are responsible for training and managing our outsourced sub-contractors. We utilize the information gained from customers by our
technical support organization to enhance our current and future products.
In North America, the United Kingdom and Australia, the first and second level technical support is provided 24hours a day, 7days a
week, 365days a year on toll-free lines. Local language support is also available during local business hours in Austria, China, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Spain and Sweden.
Competition
The small business and home networking markets are intensely competitive and subject to rapid technological change. We expect
competition to continue to intensify. Our principal competitors include:
•
within the small business networking market, companies such as 3Com, Allied Telesyn, The Linksys division of Cisco Systems,
Dell Computer, D-Link, Hewlett-Packard and Nortel Networks;and
•
within the home networking market, companies such as Belkin Corporation, D-Link, and The Linksys division of Cisco Systems.
6
2005. EDGAR Online, Inc.