At a time when the list of issues and concerns that the global motorcycle industry , and especially the custom parts and accessory sector , is having to contend with could make it onto a second page ( so complex is the matrix of challenges we face ), but there is always another factor that needs to be factored into our hopes for a good start to any year - the weather . In Europe it has been mixed - is there any other kind ? In the south it has been a lot warmer and drier than it usually is at the start of the year , while northern Europe has seen wild fluctuations from unseasonably extreme wet to extreme dry weather . In the United States , however , archaeologists have discovered that there are indeed humans and cities and entire states hidden and living under all that snow - who knew ! It would appear that in most areas a switch was thrown at the end of March and the bikes came out . As you read this , we should already be at least halfway into the traditional 90 days of ' Peak Door Swing ,' with parts department managers the world over having that " I wish I ' d ordered one of those " moments . Remarkably , given the fluctuations and uncertainties of the past three years , it looks like most new unit inventory levels in most markets are at least in some kind of balance . As for the used market though , it is increasingly difficult to know whether present inventory levels are a good thing or not . The increasing role that dealers can have in their local used motorcycle market , through OEM or independent initiatives , is , theoretically , a ' good thing .' However , the hardening of prices and increasing share of sales that online national B2C and C2C platforms are taking is not so great for showroom traffic . Overall , the ( blindingly obvious ) predictions of a decade ago that there would be a point at which the growth of online P & A / G & A sales would slow down have proven to have some truth to them . From the issues confronting Amazon , down to the share of online relative to the visceral experience of parting with one ' s cash or credit limit in person , suggests that we have arrived at a glass ceiling . We are now living in a data and AI obsessed world as organizations that think they are sales-led grapple with labor shortages and struggle for growth by drinking the data Kool-Aid . Measures of online sales volumes are difficult to contextualize , rendering incredibly important data incredibly inexact . Market-wide or sector-specific sales data ( especially G & A and hard parts and accessories ) are not only hard to prise from the proprietary grasps of those most deeply invested in capturing such numbers and trends , but we are still pretty much in the dark ages when it comes to putting controls in place to calibrate for the positive and negative impacts of wider social and economic sales drivers . We are no better at that than judging wind speed , direction and temperature with a finger in the air , rendering the entire exercise dangerously misleading as a foundation for capital investment policy- making in an era in which data drives everything . Not good . Once you get above the Small to Medium Enterprise ( SME ) sector , corporate environments are continuing to evolve into over-staffed and under-producing cultures in which the default response to declining productivity is to try to hire more ' cubicle Jacks and Jills ' in the mistaken belief that if you throw enough warm bodies at a problem , the heat generated will eventually fire the trajectory of sales and profits in the right direction . For the record , and although the precise math varies by nation and economic sector , in
other futile investments are available
so-called western economies , SMEs still account for greater than 70 % of employment , disposable income , tax take , GDP and wealth and capital generation . In fact , it is estimated that family-owned businesses of 20 people or less account for over 80 % of that . In that context , the dollar-for-dollar performance of large corporations and , especially , of Private Equity held businesses , is embarrassingly poor . They , and publicly held businesses , are shockingly inefficient operations compared to an SME sector that is way less data dependent . Neither do they have the market cornered where innovation is concerned . The world over , declining productivity is one of the primary real causes of labor shortages , economic stagnation and balance sheet instability , not , as generally argued , early retirement , declining birth rates or lower levels of economic migration . In Anglo Saxon ( as opposed to social model ) western economies you can add declining educational and vocational training standards and increasingly inefficient public spending as further drivers of declining productivity . However , those who think that AI or data are the primary answer to achieving greater levels of sales , market share , profits , growth and stakeholder dividends are just as utterly deluded as those who believe that automation will reduce employment , productivity or wealth generation . By way of an aside , it is ironic that far from being member interest protectors , unions , for example , have been an arch force of historic proportions for the kind of conservatism that holds the individual back in pay , employment and empowerment terms . From Luddite era objections to steam driven looms , through Henry Ford ' s automated production lines to this theoretically revolutionary digital era in which we find ourselves now , it has been human innovation and productivity that has driven employment , productivity or wealth generation - not technology . It is how we use AI and data that we will drive growth , not how we misuse them . I was much entertained at the recent AIMExpo by a lot of what I heard about data driven analysis and the increasing importance of artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT ( other futile investments are available ), especially by foolhardy assumptions about the umbilical cord that is supposed to link such initiatives to making sales and creating growth . People will only buy from a human who can make them feel good about doing so . Sure , give sales people cool tools , just as mankind eventually gave masons ' The Chisel ', and help marketers add to the story of how such swings are generated . But data and AI alone cannot make the sale for us , they will never replicate the emotional experience and gratification that humans are really paying for when they buy . Neither can they be calibrated for what the weather might be like !
Robin Bradley
Co-owner / Editor-in-Chief robin @ dealer-world . com