Zeiss outlines plans for SA growth
TONSLEY tenant German optical giant Zeiss has built a 120-strong workforce across four business groups at the former southern suburbs home of Mitsubishi as part of a long-term strategy to grow domestically and internationally.
T
ONSLEY tenant German optical giant Zeiss has built a 120-strong workforce across four business groups at the former southern suburbs home of Mitsubishi as part of a long-term strategy to grow domestically and internationally.
The group, which relocated from a smaller presence at Lonsdale, moved into a $6 million brand new home under the Main Assembly Building a few months ago.
Besides strategic teams, the facility also has an operations team cutting, edging and fitting complete spectacles on site and sending more than 1,000 assembled lens and frame packages per day to customers in Australia and NZ.
Zeiss also has the ability to also grind and coat specialty spectacle lenses at the facility.
It houses the group’s four business units — a sales and service centre for medical devices supporting the local market, a local Vision Care group head office for the Australian/NZ markets, a global technology and innovation Vision Care team for research and development of new products and lens technologies, and a global customer enablement business that provides remote services, digital solutions and support.
“Being co-located in the Tonsley innovation precinct with academia and other technology businesses provides an opportunity for local collaboration and accelerated business development,” said Karen Roberts, Carl Zeiss Vision International vice president of global business solutions.
“Our challenge is to maintain pace in a dynamic and uncertain global business environment. Collaboration and leveraging the best the local SA business has to offer can only help,” she said.
Ms Roberts said Zeiss worked in a collaborative way with its customers, academia and other companies with compatible technologies around the world.
“This is a model that can be leveraged more energetically in the local SA business community.”
As head of the headquarters for the customer enablement business of Zeiss, Ms Roberts last week hosted a strategy meeting at Tonsley.
Staff from North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa flew in for the annual four-day meeting.
“The global meetings are often hosted in Europe or the US so it was exciting to host the meeting in Adelaide and use the opportunity to bring in external participants from Flinders University and Lumient to participate in a Digithon event incorporated into the program,” she said.
The Australian technology and innovation (T&I) team is a vital part of Zeiss Vision Care’s global T&I network, said Dr Michael Pittolo, the company’s vice president of product & process technology.
“(At Tonsley), we expect to continue leading the development of products such as self-tinting lenses and lenses which offer complete protection form UV light, such as the recently launched UVProtect range, as well as making substantial contributions in vision research, lens design and lens processing technologies,” he said.
Carl Zeiss Vision Australasia general manager Hilke Fitzsimons said a number of new jobs and positions had been created in Adelaide, including senior marketing, sales and clinical optometry roles.
“We have over 30 staff working at Tonsley across two shifts in our operations department.
She said Australia, including SA, is a key market for the group.
“It is not just commercially important for Zeiss but also used as a test bed for developing new products, business models and deploy digitisation to complement our existing business model.”
Ms Fitzsimons said by cohabiting with other like-minded technology businesses and universities, the group aims to add further value and transform industry and academia in South Australia.