Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

INTERVIEW Ducat i North America's M ichael Lock On special mode ls such as the Hailwood or Senna replicas: I think the comp any would have actually quite liked to have continued selling that bike, although we were mindful of two things. One was that we'd told people it was a limited edition. You get people to spend $15,000 on a bike they think is going to be limited, it really ought to be limited or you'll anger them. And secondly there were some real production challenges with that bike. The bike was originally designed to be made only in the quantity of a few hundred, and therefore a lot of the componentry was not tooled up to be a full production bike. Your costs of industrialization are fundamentally different depending on whether you want to build a few hundred or a few tens of thousands . The bike was designed from a manufacturing point of view to be limited. If we'd wanted to continue making it, we would have had to have gone into full production tooling, which would have been very much more expensive and would have changed the who le economics of the project . On why Multistrada sa les are up in the United States but dow n 50 percent in the rest of the world: We had an extraordinary sales success last year with the Multistrada. The bike was the fastest selling new model in the company's history, more than all of the signature bikes you can imagine over the years. In the U.S., we have sold, retail, so far this year, 350. And in the whole of the calendar year last year we sold 289. We are up about 25 percent on 10-month sales. We'll probably end up about 40-percent up. But bear in mind, the bike only came in about halfway through last year. So we would expect to be up. They are perhaps down in Europe because it was an even bigger sales success in Europe; perhaps a lot of the people who wanted one got one. But we still posted growth on that bike here this year. O n what it's going to take t o expand the U.S. market: In brief, we need a number of things. The first thing we need , the most impo rtant thing from my point of view, is that we need a standardization of quality and presentation of our dealer network. This is a big country, and controlling the message and the presentation and the service of our brand in a country that's 3000 miles wide by 2000 miles deep, with an infrastructure at head office that I've got, Is a very difficult thing to do. 38 DECEMBER 15, 2004 • CYCLE NE WS And our customers and our fans gain information about our brand through the media primarily through reading magazines, through watching us racing on Tv, and so forth . They then expect to be able to find their local dealer and go to the dealer and see the models on display to be able to , ride demonstrators, to be able to speak to salespeople who are knowledgeable about the company, to be able to have a look and be able to buy accessories and apparel. They expect all of that because we are a global brand. I would like to say that all of that is entirely consistent across North America, but if I did, I wouldn't' be telling you the truth . If you go to a dealer in Boston, you will be very well treated . Go to a dealer in San Francisco or los Angeles, you will be very well treated . There are other major cities across the 'U.S. where we've got substantial work to do, and it's largely because we are a niche brand in the U.S. l.e, our volumes are small. And therefore, unlike most of the countries in Europe , which have high-density population and big motorcycle markets, most of dealers in the U.S. are multibrand - which means we share showroom space and workshop space, and we share staff with other brands . That in itself inherently is not a problem . But we as a company have to be able to put in structure and policyto make sure that ifyou're buyingfrom multibrand dealership in the U.S., you get every bit as good service as you would if you went to a specialist. And I don't think historically we've been able to do that . In fact, I know that historically we haven't been able to. We're probably better now that we 've ever been, but we've got a colossal amount of work to go. And I think that 's our number-one barrier to increasing our volume: That we've got major marketplaces in the U.S., and I won't tell you which ones they are, except to say they 're ones that you know - they 're top 50 cities in the U.S. - where if you were a Ducati fan and you went to your local dealer, you would have to fight your way past mass-market motorcycles to find a small and incomplete selection of Ducatis at the back. Youwouldn't have a ded icated salesman - you may not even have a dedicated technician in the workshop. And therefore, you may be disinclined to spend IS, 20 or $30,000 on a premium motorcycle that needs care and attention. And I wouldn't blame you. So that's the biggest area we 've got . The second biggest area we've got I think Is to plug a few significant holes in our product lineup to make sure that we can grow. 1 think as far as our core goes, the superblke market, I genuinely believe we have the best product on the market, we have the best brand on the market and I think we do a fantastic job - particularly . 40th Anniversar y in 'OS, with the revamped lineup, the superbike range is looking fantastic. But there are other areas of the business where we could be doing better. We .know we 've fallen a little off the pace with supersport models, which used to be the bread and butter for the company back in the 90s; they were what put Ducati on the map in North America, much more than the 916 . We have fallen a little off the pace there. I think that the Monster brand is loved over here and it's been our biggest seller for 10 years, but we learned from introducing the S4R last year - suddenly it became our best selling Monster and it's the most expensive - that we knew that if we breathed new life into the Monsters , the customers would come . 50 we 've got plans underfoot to inject a bit of new life and excitement in Monsters over the next two years. And I think that will dramatically increase our sales performance. And we 've got to expand the Multistrada lineup. We only had one bike. And all the while you only have one bike, I think the market looks at it and says, "Well, do they really believe in it? Is that the core of what they do? Is it an oddity? Will people laugh at me for buying that bike?" And in 2005, we now have a three-model family of Multistradas. We've got an entry-level bike, a 620, with a great price that we negotiated with Italyto really break the market open. Under $8000, it's an entry -level, European premium motorcycle, but not at a premium . 50 I think we've got great potential with that. And we've got a range-topper: the Multistrada S. It's got Ohlins suspension, carbon fiber, and it looks mean and nasty. So, I think we will get a new audience with that . So there are holes we've had in the product lineup, which, ifwe plug, we will get substantial improvement. And the other thing we have to do is we have to keep developing our relationship with the media. We're far more reliant than any of the mass-market brands on editorial. We don't have multimillion-dollar advertising budgets, so we can't reach out and affect the marketplace the way that any of the mass-market brands can. So, we rely on a good relationship with the media, good editorial coverage, road tests, stories about what we're doing in racing, what's going on globally And we still need to do . a bit more work with that. We're certainly getting a much better coverage than we did a couple of years ago, eN but there's still more work to do on that as well.

• Cover