dealer disquiet has reached unprecedented levels
What A Mess !
Since I wrote this column last month , I ' ve been to Milwaukee for the Drag Specialties 2024 NVP Product Expo , and the first of a two-part review of vendor news is in this edition . The weekend was dominated by three main lines of dialog . First , the excellent new expo environment that LeMans is now providing . Second , now that inflation finally appears to be at least somewhat under control , the soft 2024 parts and accessories aftermarket as we await the effects of an overdue interest rate reduction cycle , and regardless of the outcome , getting this year ' s Presidential election into the rear-view mirror won ' t hurt either . Third , and inevitably , what with being in Milwaukee ' n all , the ongoing deterioration in Harley ' s market reputation as it emerges that even its attempts to address its problems are proving problematic . Having previously addressed the IRA grant aid it scored to subsidize new LiveWire production configuration , last month ' s " Harley Needs to Start Thinking the Unthinkable " piece talked about the decision to move Revolution Max platform model production ( Pan America and new-gen Sportsters ) to Thailand . Harley claims it will only be for a year , but representing , as it does , the first time it will be making bikes for sale in the United States outside the United States , that seems unlikely . Either way , the Unions are furious and accusing Harley of breaking the promises made in 2019 when it pledged that it would only ever make international market motorcycles internationally . There are many other issues bubbling away in Harley ' s cauldron of woe - share price , fiscals , dealer policies , inventory channel stuffing , declining sales and , most recently , backtracking on the ' touchy feely ' HardWire Diversity , Equality and Inclusivity ( DEI ) strategy that would see it waving rainbow flags and sailing perilously close to recruitment by positive discrimination quota . Personally , I have nothing against rainbow flags - nor pink ones , yellow , black or brown ones . I think that it does behove all of us to ' Play Nice ' with everyone and to keep our views to ourselves . Express them in the ballot box and not in the cowardly confines of social media channels , I say . Free speech must include the freedom to disagree , or else it includes nothing . I have always seen the best intentions of positive discrimination as misguided - those intentions , paradoxically , are guilty of exactly the kind of bigotry and bias that such policies are designed to screen out of society . So , should corporations play the DEI card and deploy its kissing cousin , the ESG ( Environmental , Social and Governance ) policy ? Well , yes , of course they should , but the fact that everyone is now supposed to boast about doing so , and cancel anyone who doesn ' t , only goes to show just how shit society has been , not how great political correctness is going to make it . Hire someone because of their ability , not because of the boxes they check . Since last month , the brown stuff really has hit the fan . Dealers have been complaining to Harley about how they are being treated , and bigoted right-wing activists have been banking click-credits as they claim it is their all-knowing wisdom that has changed Harley ' s corporate governance policies . Last year I wrote a piece entitled " Harley is Treating its Dealers Like an ATM ," and I knew at the time that it had touched a nerve . There is no question that the brave new world of investor group and private equity ownership of Bar ' n Shield shrines simply could not end well . Not in any parallel universe was it a good idea to institutionalize the worship of mammon as a higher calling than praising the metal ! We all have fiduciary duties , sure , but as one dealer has said in what has become an open letter to the H-D CEO , Jochen Zeitz , his failure to immediately vacate the
dealer disquiet has reached unprecedented levels
role will itself be an abandonment of his own fiduciary duties to all stakeholders . Strong stuff . Dealer disquiet has reached unprecedented levels , with those lobbying the Harleycentric NPDA said to be in the hundreds . In its inane , toe curlingly self-regarding statement of mid-August , one that was intended to address the disquiet , but singularly failed to heal the wounds , and instead painted themselves as the victims . Harley merely reinforced the sense that , actually , they are neither great listeners nor great capitalists . In defending themselves from the perception of having attempted suicide by swallowing an entire shed load of Woke pills , the company stated that " we do not have hiring quotas and we no longer have supplier diversity spend goals ." Like having had quotas might have been a legitimate ping on the governance radar , and that dumping spend goals makes it all okay now ? WTF were they thinking in the first place ? Do they not understand the concept of free market enterprise ? Harley lambasts those whose " social media negativity " is " designed to divide the community ." Hello ? The problem has been that it is its policies that have done the dividing . In reaction , it is the ' stakeholders ' that are now trying to reunite the manufacturer with its brand heritage , values , dealers and customer opportunities . But the corporate playbook is one that now eliminates the ability to put the shovel down and stop digging . For a senior management team that would claim a stellar and insightful understanding of what the concept of ' Brand ' means , it does not have even the remotest grasp of who its customers have been , of who they presently are , and of who they are going to be after we Boomers have ridden our last mile . Harley wants the brand to be what it says it is , not what its customers want it to be . Corporate arrogance of the most dangerously juvenile kind ! The original HardWire strategic plan expires in 15 months , and Zeitz has already been coy with investors about the planning of HardWire II . And well he might be . The present plan having so clearly failed , he and his fellow travellers are hardly made of ' the right stuff ' where planning the next stage is concerned . HardWire has failed just as spectacularly as the well-meaning Matt Levatich ' s ill considered ' More Roads ' plan did . It is , therefore , inconceivable that any new sense of direction can be allowed to be sequential to , or developmental to , this one ; or that the present management are the ones tasked with devising it . It cannot be built on what has gone before , it needs to be a radically different approach that resets priorities and takes the company in an altogether new direction . Harley needs new thinking , and that means new thinkers . Harley needs to delist from the NYSE before a hostile takeover bid ( probably Chinese ) takes all manufacturing out of the USA . It needs to serve time in friendly , heritage-sensitive private hands , lick its wounds ( modestly ) and re-evaluate what its place in the global motorcycle industry of the mid-21st century can be . That includes selling LiveWire to a ( probably Chinese ) company that is in a position to make sense of the project . The timing of change maybe uncertain , but the fact that there needs to be radical change is entirely certain . What a mess !
Robin Bradley
Co-owner / Editor-in-Chief robin @ dealer-world . com
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