funded and shaping its forward business plan . It is doing so in advance of emergence from the legal process this spring - expected in early April - at which point the new owners ( Blue Mountain Capital Management , Monomoy Capital Partners and Contrarian Capital Management ) will have acquired 100 percent ownership . Meanwhile , Biker ’ s Choice management and their sales team are doing an excellent job of producing an environment in which that third and most difficult of expo intangibles can play out - “ community ”, as Kenan Ikels termed it succinctly . In an era that appears likely to be characterized by the absence of independent trade shows ( as far as the spring buying and selling season is concerned ), the danger is that the biggest loss , especially with the demise of the V-Twin Expo at Cincinnati , was likely to be the opportunity for relationships and friendships to be forged , reinforced and renewed – simple good old fashioned face-to-face contact making .
‘ most difficult of expo intangibles ’
However , while Tucker Rocky and Biker ’ s Choice , their sales teams and the dealers who visited , quite rightly kept their “ eye on the prize ” in Texas as far as the buy and sell of the show was concerned , the company managed to create an ambiance in which the offbalance sheet values of trade shows was able to prosper . Kudos to all for being able to achieve that at this most difficult of times . We met with Tucker Rocky President Eric Cagle and VP Sales & Marketing Kenan Ikels , and rather than talking too much about the recent past , we focused on the present and the future . That said , Cagle is of the view that the company has emerged stronger from the process , and better placed to continue the progress that the all new management team has been making in the prior 18 months . “ From an operations perspective , much has already been done ,” explained Cagle . “ We haven ’ t lost a single person as a direct result of the filing - our staff attrition rate has remained the same before and after . “ Neither have we lost any customers . Sure , there have had to be some conversations in which we have sought to reassure customers , but our
Kenan Ikels , VP Sales & Marketing : “ We trialed a new Team Sales plan last year , we have been able to refine the concept , and implement it nationally ”
transparency has made sure that everyone , customers , staff and vendors , understood that the biggest long-term impact is the shedding of some $ 350m of term debt , resulting in debt service payments reduced by $ 20 m or twothirds - giving us the financial resources to continue with planned operational improvements and a 700 % improvement in our capital maintenance budget . “ It is all about continuing to provide our vendors and our customers with ever improving service levels right across the board . We understand that competition is vital and we are focused and determined on being the best competitor and business partner in the powersports market . “ Essentially this is a simple business . We are an intermediary . We bring skill sets and scale that vendors and dealers can ’ t achieve without an effective logistics partner . We work with our vendors , and dealers to support their businesses and help them grow . That is our job , and that is what we are 100
Eric Cagle , Tucker Rocky President
percent focused on . “ Moving forward our job is to do that even better , and what the market has seen from us in the past 18 months is a series of tactical moves to provide the platform for continuous improvement . We have staffed key positions , many of which hadn ’ t previously existed and there will be more appointments in the future , but the biggest thing has been to address the service levels we provide for our partners - vendors and dealers . “ We have made huge improvements in our inventory management for example . We are becoming more disciplined and we are certainly managing inventory smarter . The ‘ Facing Fill ’ that we have been providing our dealers , that ’ s the service level from their local Distribution Center ( DC ), improved by 7 percent last year to a level that is significantly above anything that Tucker Rocky had operated at previously . “ The filing in November created a ‘ blip ’ in that progress , but we are already very nearly back to that level now and for
2018 we will implement further improvements that will generate an additional 2 to 3 percent improvement . Additionally , our order to delivery timeframe has improved by 10 percent and 99.5 percent of our orders are leaving our warehouses same day . Cagle says he sees nothing on the horizon that suggests the five DC network will change . He describes their locations as providing as near to optimum domestic U . S . logistics as is possible according to all the “ center of gravity ” studies they ’ ve seen , with the head office DC at Fort Worth , Texas , and others at Bolingbrooke , Illinois ( near Chicago ), Olyphant , eastern Pennsylvania , Jacksonville , Florida , and Visalia in central California . As to the inventory in DCs , “ we are managing better and smarter through “ better forecasting and Purchase Order management . “ We will spend more time and attention to detail on our vendor relationships and vendor performance management . Historically we have not done as good a job on that as we should and could be doing . We started in 2017
‘ 7 percent improvement in Facing Fill ’
by giving a selected group of our vendors a better forecast of demand . We now plan to roll that out to as many of our vendors as possible through 2018 . The beneficial impact of that may not be evident until into 2019 , but it certainly will have a positive impact .” Kenan Ikels went on to explain the changes that have taken place in their sales organization . Previously either inside or outside sales would “ own ” an account , and if it was dealt with by inside sales , then that dealer would rarely be visited by an outside sales representative . Conversely , the outside sales force was restricted in terms of the back-up , support and resources they were able to call up on to better serve their customer .” Ikels said that : “ We tried a new Team Sales model last year , with 10 selected markets , and learned from that , finding out what worked and what was needed . We have been able to refine the concept , so we have been able to implement it nationally . “ Now , the outside sales representative is the primary but not sole dealer-facing resource our customers have to support their business with us . “ The outside sales representative can now call on an array of support , from
18 AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - MARCH 2018 www . AMDchampionship . com