Logitech is everywhere. It’s betting on design and AI to keep it that way
There are bigger, better-known tech brands than Logitech, but few have ever rivaled its quiet but pervasive impact on how people engage with the digital world. Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, but with equally deep roots in Silicon Valley, the 44-year-old company helped to popularize once-unfamiliar devices such as computer mice and webcams. Those are still two of its marquee product lines.But Logitech also makes a dizzying array of other accoutrements for personal and business computing, including keyboards, headphones, speakers, microphones, videoconferencing equipment, tablet accessories, gaming controllers, and more. Despite playing in a variety of categories that are prone to commoditization, it has a genuinely impressive record of standing out by prioritizing design.Hanneke Faber joined Logitech as CEO in December 2023 after a long career at global giants such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble, where she oversaw familiar consumer brands in categories from soup (Knorr) to shampoo (Pantene). As she nears her second anniversary in charge, she’s been busy sharpening Logitech’s focus while giving it room to explore new territory. On October 28, the company reported its quarterly results and said that AI-infused products had helped it beat expectations.As the CEO of a company ultimately in the business of making physical goods around the world—Logitech manufactures a product every five seconds—Faber has also been managing the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs at international scale.I spoke with Faber at Logitech’s U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.Logitech has a pretty broad set of products and has been around for a long time. What is it these days, and is that evolving?It’s a combination of who we have been and where we’re going. One of the reasons I loved joining Logitech is that you get into a taxi anywhere, and (the driver) is like, “Who do you work for?” With Logitech, in a taxi in Shanghai, a taxi in Berlin, or a taxi in New York, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I’m a gamer.” Or “That’s my mouse.” It’s a product that’s in everyone’s hand, and it’s a brand most people know, which is great.Going forward, our mission is to extend human potential in work and play. And those words are very carefully chosen. Yes, we’re a tech company, but it’s about making people better and extending their potential. Extend is a riff on the mouse, because it’s an extension of your arm, and the mouse built this house. But we hope that we can make people a little more productive, help them connect more easily, and do all of that in ways that are healthier for people and the planet. That’s extending human potential, and we’ve decided that we’ll do that in work and in play.Today we have close to a $5 billion business, but if you look at the addressable market for work and play products, it’s about $25 billion. So there’s still a ton of room to grow by extending human potential in work and play.We do that with superior products, and we describe the products we’re in as design-led software-enabled hardware. “Design-led” is so important to us. I was quite shocked when I got here that we have almost 300 in-house designers, which is more than a company like P&G or Unilever has in-house.Of course we make stuff, but increasingly it’s deeply software- and AI-enabled, and that’s how we make our products superior. And we employ more software engineers and hardware engineers these days. So that’s who we are.There aren’t all that many brands that are both work and play. How do you deal with that, given that in some cases, what’s good for work is radically different from what’s good for a gamer?The brand has really broad shoulders, so we can attract the 17-year-old gamer but also the CIO of a company who’s buying a lot of work products from us. And you wouldn’t think that the same brand can do that, but that CIO is often a gamer, too. And obviously, from a product point of view, there are a lot of synergies. Gamers need mice and keyboards, and people who work need mice and keyboards, but audio and video also goes across work and play. So while we have teams that are really dedicated to gaming and dedicated to work, there’s also a large, scalable engineering and design organization across both.Some people do care about design and will gravitate toward you. Others are focused on price or technology. Are you trying to increase the pool of people who care about design?I like to spend a lot of time with users and, well, some have more money than others. But I would say most people actually care about design. They might not talk about it as design, but they’ll talk about it as, “When I walk into this room, I should be able to press a button or, ideally, not even press a button, and the videoconferencing should just work.”In an age where technology is changing so fast with AI, we risk making things that are too complicated for most people to use on a daily basis. Designing them in a way that’s intuitive, that’s really easy to use, is really important. And that, to me, is a real foundation of design. It’s not just colors and aesthetics.Talk a little bit about the process of developing software, especially now that AI is a thing.The way we look at AI, internally, is that of course it’s absolutely extending human potential, if I may use those words. Across the company, it’s making our people faster, more accurate, and just able to get more work done in less time. Certainly in coding, but also in places where I would’ve expected it less, like marketing and design, where you can just get more ideas more quickly. This is not about cutting people, but we’ve got to do more with the people we’ve got. And this is helping us do that.And then, maybe more excitingly, there’s AI in products. The Logitech Sight (tabletop videoconferencing camera) is like an AI producer in the middle of the room. It’s like Steven Spielberg is on the table, but he’s AI, and he makes sure everything is framed correctly and you’re having a really, really engaging meeting. I’m the person who’s always on my headset in an airport, and you’ll hate speaking to me, because you hear every announcement that’s out there. But with two-way noise cancellation, it actually knows when it’s me speaking, and it blocks out everything else. Again, without machine learning on our audio data, that’s not possible. And there’s a lot more to come.Pro X Superlight wireless gaming mouse (Photo: Courtesy of Logitech)There were stories a little while ago about Logitech talking about a mouse that gets better over time. And at least some of the instinctive response I saw was like, “I don’t want my mouse to get better over time, and I definitely don’t want to subscribe to a mouse.”I never used the word subscription. And it’s not an actual plan. But again, I like my designers to think big, and that can be in all kinds of spaces. In the age of AI, we’re thinking bigger than ever before, but I should probably keep my mouth shut when talking about these ideas.In theory, at least, might people look forward to software upgrades that make this product they already own more capable?Certainly, that’s very true on the B2B side. On the videoconferencing side, we’re constantly updating the software to be smarter, to be able to do more, and to make it easier for the people operating it. There’s nothing I love more than visiting one of our B2B customers and to hear from their CIO or IT managers—that tends to be a he, so I’ll use the word—that he can manage 10,000 meeting rooms around the world with a click of a button.A lot of Logitech’s products, like mice and webcams, are just part of the air people breathe. Headsets have been around forever. Does Logitech also need to enter completely new categories on a regular basis?Absolutely. Only the paranoid survive. So while we have a great core and we’ll continue to innovate on our core, we also need to do what I call “more.” There’s the core, and there’s more.The majority of our resources do go to the core, because we always want better mice and better keyboards and better cameras and better headsets. And there’s cool innovation there. The Combo Touch keyboard for the new iPads is a beautiful new product. A50 X, a new headset that lets you switch between different platforms—gorgeous product. Pro X Superlight gaming mouse—amazing mouse. You pick it up and you don’t even know that it’s there, it’s so light.But that’s core. Those are things we know, and we just make them better to stay ahead of the competition. And then we spend a smaller part of our resources on more. Last year, we (introduced) the MX Ink, which is a pencil for the Meta headset. And we launched (the Logitech Muse for Apple Vision Pro) at Apple’s developer conference.G515 TKL low-profile gaming keyboard (Photo: Courtesy of Logitech)Logitech often gets a lot of attention at Apple events. You don’t see Apple playing up other people’s products all that much.That was exciting for us as well. And we’re grateful for having a chance to work with both Meta and Apple on AR and VR.Is there a chance that someday that might be a big business, which I assume it isn’t yet?It’s not big yet, but it could be big in the future. And to do that together with big partners makes it more likely.And then there are other things that we’re doing in terms of more. We launched the Spot sensor, which is more for B2B. It’s a sensor to put in meeting rooms, and it measures temperature, but also CO2 in the air. We haven’t done sensors before. The world will be full of sensors pretty soon. This is a space where we need to learn, because in an age of AI, our hardware is already in many places.We launch about 40 new products a year, and about between 30 and 35 are in the core. And then there’s another 5 or 10 that are more, because we do have to really learn on new categories as well.Logitech’s Spot, a presence and environmental sensor for offices (on rear wall) is due later this year. (Photo: Courtesy of Logitech)How much of success is about the unglamorous world of designing the products quickly and knowing which price points to hit and knowing how to manufacture them and having good distribution, knowing which products to continue with and which ones to kill?It’s the foundation of it all. So if I look at strategy, how we win is with superior products and innovation with an iconic brand, and by doubling down on B2B. Those are the sexy things. What’s less sexy—but I actually find them quite sexy—are the go-to-market and the operations, and that’s where Logitech shines. We are an operational powerhouse.We make a product every five seconds. We manufacture in six countries. Last year we had record cost savings on how we manufacture. We do it with great quality, great service, and great costs, both at the top end and the lower end of our portfolio. That is critical in hardware. It’s very different from software-only companies, which most here in the Valley are.And then go-to-market, we’re selling in 150 countries. We don’t just sell to Best Buy and Walmart. We sell to (Europe’s) MediaMarkt and thousands and thousands of other customers around the world as well. Doing that requires a really strong organization on the ground in all of those countries.There was this period during the pandemic when all of a sudden people started to pay attention to a lot of the tech that Logitech plays in—their camera setup and their audio and so forth. How do you convince people who in a lot of cases probably already own something that there might be a newer one that’s worth investing in?Well, there are many layers to that question. First of all, we’re about a 50% bigger company than before the pandemic because of that dynamic, and we’re growing again. We are convincing people to trade in, to trade up, to trade across. Those are all great dynamics for Logitech.The other thing going on there is that it may feel like we sell a need, but in many cases it is a want as well, especially in gaming. Do you need the new Pro X Superlight mouse? No, you will survive without it. But it is such an incredibly appealing product that it will make you just that little bit faster and cooler as you play the game.I should ask about tariffs, and whether you have any clarity about their long-term impact.No, I don’t think anyone has any clarity. But what I do know is that we have a very advantageous starting point, because only 30% of our business is in the U.S.Also, we manufacture in six countries, not just one. So we’ve actively been moving things around to take advantage of the lowest tariffs. And when you have a strong brand, that’s loyalty, but it’s also pricing power. With that, plus a strong balance sheet, we have a much better starting point than most people.Are you able to pull the levers you’ll need to in order to deal with as best you can? Have you raised prices?I’ve been quite open about that. I don’t like raising prices, but in this context it was a responsible thing to do here in the United States. So we have done that back in April.What’s it like working for this company that has this heritage in two countries over this long period, which is fairly unusual?I think it’s super special, and it’s another advantage of this company. The Valley obviously has the innovation and dynamism. And for us, a company that launches 40 new products every year, this is a great place to be.But Switzerland is a country of watches. It’s a country that’s been around since 1300. It has the long-term view, it has the accuracy, the precision, the quality, which is also very important for a company like ours. I feel very fortunate to lead a company with a foot in both places.The early-rate deadline for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards is Friday, November 14, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
已发布: 2025-10-29 09:00:00
