CVO Social > In The News
Harley "Rewire" in 3 parts
ultrafxr:
Thank you Para Bellum for your insightful post. I totally agree that Wandell was a disaster. Levatich was a long term H-D employee and a rider / enthusiast. I’ve met and talked to him a couple times and I don’t think he was the total problem by any means. He was in a lose, lose position imo and I doubt the new interim guy will do any better. But I could and have been wrong. Time will tell.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
J.D.:
I see HD heading towards a very similar fate as Sears.
mark:
--- Quote from: 2002FXDWG3 on May 05, 2020, 08:41:30 PM ---I see HD heading towards a very similar fate as Sears.
--- End quote ---
...and Sears sold motorcycles too.
2smoke:
--- Quote from: Para Bellum on May 05, 2020, 02:47:11 AM ---Everybody blames Levatich for the problems...but we should think about Wandell's (the previous CEO) actions and the effect on HD's current troubles.
Wandell is the one who cut quality to the bone and raised prices. That's what made our bikes unreliable and short-lived. Sure, it reduced MoCo's costs, so it increased profits...which increased the stock price...but it led to hard feelings with both the long-time faithful and the recently arrived.
Investors loved it, as did Wandell's bank account. We know how riders felt about it, but it took a while for the low quality to be recognized widely. We can thank HD's strategy of "they all do that" and "never seen that before" and "no recall needed" for delaying recognition of across-the-board quality cuts and the inevitable loss of sales.
When Wandell realized riders were getting wise to his plan, he decided to quit while things were good, before the decrease in profits sank the stock prices, and his reputation was still good. He left a complete chit-show for the new CEO, who probably made sure he had a great Golden Parachute in place...since he was guaranteed to get fired. The $25 to 30 million he made the last 4 years, plus his retirement package, make him set for the rest of his life.
There was no way Levatich was going to turn HD around; not with the die-off of loyal customers, the lack of a Millenial market and their low opinion of HD, no Millenial money, no bikes for Millenials, the cost of bringing in a new engine and tranny. He also had to spend more money to get higher quality parts. Any of these factors could have prevented a turnaround; the combination of them made it impossible.
Now Zeitz has realized he's in deep doo-doo, and, since he's a relatively young man, he wants to avoid "retirement" and save his reputation. So he's working hard to blame it on Levatich by abandoning all of the old strategy. Trouble is, in the current China-virus economy, fancy marketing tricks and big promises aren't going to work.
HD is a mortally wounded company, and I expect them to file for bankruptcy within 5 years. With any luck, it will be bought by some riders who are astute businessmen, but it will be a generation or two, along with a major culture change, before it gets back to the glory days. It's Wandell who killed it. Levatich was just collateral damage.
--- End quote ---
Right on! Levatich was in a no-win situation and the writing was on the wall. Matt was with the company for many years and he lives only a few miles from the Pilgrim Road Plant. Matt is a personable guy, the kind that will stop and talk if you run into him at the grocery store. The people that work at that plant are members of the same community that he is in. Wandell was a hatchet man that was shipped in to do the dirty deeds of the slash-n-burn management philosophy. Mission accomplished. Now he's back on the golf course ready to go and do a hack job on the next place some board of mis-directors wants to cripple. The formula is so simple and it has been done thousands of times before: close plants and sell the assets to show a profit, lay-off people (shows an instant cost savings), immediately source parts that are cheap (once again instant cost savings), stop any R & D in new product and shutter any new projects (another quicky way to show an influx of cash) and then get-out with a big fat paycheck before the chit hits the fan. Now you have a pile of smoldering ashes of something that took years to build. The original 13 had their personal fortunes and everything on the line. They gave everything to build the company up and make it one of the greatest success stories ever. Wow! didn't take long to tear it down! Now, how do you save it?
J.D.:
Two very well written posts :2vrolijk_21:
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version