You are Élodie Chevalier, head of innovation at Méridien Audio, a premium headphone and speaker maker based in Lyon. Two days ago, at a Berlin trade show, a start-up began licensing AI audio personalisation to any hardware maker that wants it. Before you spend a euro, you have to say what kind of situation this is.
The situation
Méridien was founded in 2011, employs 620 people and turns over EUR 240 million at a 12% operating margin. Its reputation rests on a simple idea: customers pay for a well-engineered device and keep it for years. Your unit, eighteen engineers with a standing mandate of their own, exists because the hardware organisation works at a cadence measured in years.
The start-up's proposition runs the other way. It is venture-backed and sells its personalisation software to any manufacturer: if personalisation can be delivered and continually improved through software, the device stops being where the value lives. This morning a French retail partner forwarded you a one-line question: will Méridien's next headphones support open AI audio profiles, or is the partner locked in?
Nothing in Méridien's own numbers has broken: sell-through is flat, not falling. But the start-up's recruiters have already called two of your eighteen engineers, and a second, similarly funded competitor is preparing its own move within the quarter. You hold a discretionary budget of EUR 6 million and have nine months until the board's FY2027 strategy review, when product commitments lock. A full pivot to a software platform is estimated at EUR 40 million over three years, a bet no board approves on one trade show and one email.