May 25, 2009 – Nearly starting from scratch

By Neil Pascale
Editor
WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J. — Only the name remains the same, as Mark Brady can surely attest to.
The Husqvarna brand name, long associated with off-road racing and a championship heritage, is about the only thing that remains from the brand’s recent past. The brand has a new owner (BMW), a new leader (Brady), new product (including a notable motocross segment entry) and everything else new one could possibly think of.
“We bought the assets, but we didn’t buy a company,” Brady noted of BMW’s acquisition of the Husqvarna brand name.
Brady, a former Triumph executive, was hired by BMW about six weeks before the acquisition took place last year. Afterward, he spent several months building a small team, which includes off-road icon Scot Harden, and dealing with a mass of issues large and small that come as a result of starting a new worldwide company.
“We’ve been doing an awful lot of learning, building, constructing,” Brady said, before adding with a laugh, “and redesigning when you learn a little bit more to put things in place.”
Things are now in place. The company in March received CARB approval so its motorcycles can now be sold in every state.
“Looking back, I think the team has done an incredible job,” Brady said. “When you’re in the middle of it, it’s like what else can be on fire today?”
Some of the issues that have been dealt with include where the manufacturing is occurring as well as the brand’s parts supply. Manufacturing was previously done in an Italian facility that also was producing MV Agustas and Cagivas. Going forward, Husqvarna manufacturing will remain in Italy but be in a separate facility from other European brands. The same can be said for the brand’s parts and accessories. Previous issues with parts and accessories, including incorrectly labeled items or incomplete orders, were dealt with by moving them to a separate warehouse.
“That’s behind us,” Brady said of Husqvarna’s parts order fulfillment issues.
Going forward, the brand can concentrate on its new marketing campaign and its 2009 lineup that includes more than a dozen models, some of which are street legal.
“Awareness is first,” Brady said. “We’ll worry about conversion and consideration once we get enough people actually aware that Husqvarna makes motorcycles, good motorcycles.”
Another issue going forward is dealer network development.
Brady says the company inherited about
80 dealers that were signed up with the former owner of the brand.
“Our philosophy so far has been not to sign on any new dealers until we actually had a
system in place and knew how it would work with our current (dealers),” he said. “To add the confusion of inexperienced dealers with everything else we had, we thought wasn’t wise.”
Brady now believes the company has taken enough steps to begin accommodating new dealers. He expects the company to add 10-20 dealers this year. “We have a lot of space to work with,” Brady said of dealer territories, noting at least 10 states don’t have Husqvarna dealers.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from BMW dealers. We’ve had a lot of interest from other European, off-road motorcycle dealers.”
What is Brady looking for in potential Husqvarna dealers? “For us, they need to understand dirt bikes,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest bit.
“If you go into an on-highway dealer, you’re going to struggle because they don’t tend to carry the range of clothing, the range of safety gear, the range of accessories that the dirt bike customer expects. You can’t put (the bikes) in a corner and leave them there. It’s a whole genre of motorcycles, a whole lifestyle of riding that if you don’t have somebody in the store that understands it, you’re not going to be successful.”
Brady notes that doesn’t mean the company won’t consider dealers who currently only have an on-road brand. The key will be the dealership staff and their knowledge of the off-road market. “The staff is critical,” he said.
Besides offering its championship heritage as a potential lure to dealers, Husqvarna dealers will have access to retail finance through BMW Financial Services as well as the ability to market the company’s new TC250, which has received early press acclaims for its low weight
(48 pounds) and four-stroke powerplant.
“For us to have a competitive, lightweight motocross motorcycle opens up a big chunk of the market,” Brady said. “The off-road market is predominantly motocross because the Big Four predominantly made motocross motorcycles.”
That product, plus the company’s offerings in the growing dual sport segment, has Brady upbeat about the new Husqvarna.
“Historically, (dealers) probably didn’t need to be aware of the brand because it wasn’t particularly a good business venture for them anyway,” he said. “The potential is now huge.
“There’s no reason why you couldn’t expect the No. 1 brand worldwide for off-road motorcycles to be Husqvarna within the next 10 years. That’s not unreasonable.”