Zomax Puts International Staff on Protective Notice

Zomax, the $200m NASDAQ quoted company which was founded in the USA in 1993, has put international workers on protective notice. Zomax is involved with the manufacture and distribution of CD's and printing material, which are outsourced by other companies. Zomax has seven large facilities in the US, one in Canada and two in Ireland. A Japanese conglomerate called KAO bought into the Irish plants in line with Zomax's policy of growth through acquisition.

The company in which the employees 100 employees were put on protective is based in Ireland. The MD,Mr Burke stated, "the company is working to secure alternative opportunities to replace lost business, but negotiations take time, and Zomax had no alternative but to issue employees with protective notice." Zomax started out as a CD replicator, mastering and copying CD's for the world's largest vendors. It diversified into other areas, it managed to author 35,000,000 CD's and DVD's in 2001.

Due to the trend in outsourcing their customers began to outsource more and more of their non-core functions and Zomax had to alter their way of doing business by the production of packaging, addition of manuals and distribution. The news of protective notice given to one of their international plants has sent shock waves through the company employees in the US and Canada.

Since it was founded in 1993, Zomax has tried to keep up to date with their customers requirements. The systems that they had in situ were updated as they were not capable of to reach the everincreasing demands of their customers. Up to this point in time, Zomax has managed to swing and change with the times however is this the first hole that may sink the rather large US company. Watch this space.