Sometimes when a company changes its name, the first thing you think is “old wine in new bottles.” But when Starkey Laboratories, the 45-year-old hearing aid company, today announced its name change to Starkey Hearing Technologies, it reflected how far the company has come in recent years. It also sent a strong signal on where the company is going–toward a future focused on developing new hearing technologies and integrating them into multiple brands of new hearing products for big consumer markets.
In recent years, Starkey has emerged as one of the top five global hearing aid companies, with nearly a billion dollars of sales from a broad line of products that meet consumers’ entire range of hearing needs. Its five hearing aid brands–Audibel, AudioSync, NuEar, MicroTech and the original Starkey brand–are increasingly driven by a common platform of new technologies in digital signal processing, sound processing, miniaturization, wireless connectivity to your phone, TV and other devices, and wireless binaural communication between hearing aids for a more natural balanced sound.
“Over the past decade, we have gone from a manufacturing company to a global technology company,” Jerry Ruzicka, President of Starkey Hearing Technologies, said in a news release. “The name change better aligns with both who we are as an organization, as well as our focus on innovation, technology and the diverse customers we serve.”
Starkey was founded in Minnesota by William Austin, who has devoted more time in recent years to philanthropy. His Starkey Hearing Foundation to date has given away more than 500,000 hearing aids to people in need in the U.S. and around the world, with a commitment to giving away more than 100,000 hearing aids annually and a goal of one million more this decade. In the meantime, Starkey’s new generation of operating leadership has poured money into R&D and new-product development, and the results are starting to make a big impact on hearing-industry markets.
Once known more for its sales strength than leadership in innovation, in recent years Starkey caught up to and in many instances surpassed other leading hearing-aid manufacturers in developing and promoting hot new technologies. Just this week the company’s new AMP “invisible” hearing aid is being honored at the International Consumer Electronics Show with a 2012 Innovations Design and Engineering Award.
But the newly named Starkey Hearing Technologies won’t be able to rest on its laurels, or its name change, to continue competing successfully in the increasingly competitive global high-end hearing technology industry, where all the leaders are driving the advanced technologies in their hearing aids into consumer products for markets such as high-tend audio, Bluetooth phones, headsets and earphones, and wireless devices.
Industry leader Sonova Group, whose Phonak brand has been both a technology and a marketing leader for years, has continued to drive innovation in sound processing and wireless technologies. GN Store Nord, parent of ReSound hearing aids, also has a Netcom headset division that is driving into industrial hearing protection and consumer markets for earphones and headsets including the popular Jabra bluetooth phone earpieces. And Oticon hearing-aid parent William Demant’s similar push into consumer hearing technologies is led by its high-end Sennheiser headsets and other well-known audio brands.