In this guest writer piece, Mark Klossner pulls back the curtain on what keeps OEMs busy long after the snow melts—and why getting it right in July makes all the difference in January.
Have you ever wondered what a snowplow manufacturer does during the summer? They can’t be testing, right? It’s hot and there’s no snow! What the heck do they do all day? As contractors tend to grass and landscape jobs during the summer months, snow and ice manufacturers (OEMs) shift their focus to several different areas.
Sales
The typical offseason finds OEM sales reps in the field making sales calls and attending open houses, fairs as well as tradeshows. They secure “pre-season” orders from their dealers and carefully assess where their dealers stand with inventory.
Inventory is a critical subject in this industry. Inventory, along with weather, are the most influential factors in determining how the wholesale and retail sales will look for their company and their dealers.
Sales leadership tries its best to project the rest of the year to the rest of the organization. That projection must be earlier than later because it’s used to plan manufacturing including the ordering of long-lead time parts. To say that this is in inexact science is understatement and the implications of being significantly off can have a major impact on the OEM’s season – in the form of lack of inventory or too much inventory.
Marketing
For OEM marketing departments, the offseason is about production of marketing materials and content for digital marketing efforts.
OEM Dealers need to have printed materials and signage in hand by July to support open houses, fairs, etc. The materials must contain the latest product information, especially new products. Furthermore, the printed and digital marketing strategies must be in synch as nothing frustrates a dealer more than the OEM announcing a new product on Facebook without telling them or not having support materials for their retail efforts.
If the brand is planning to launch a new website, app or other platform, this is typically the time of the year they do it. Why? Because it’s the time of the year when the least amount of interaction from customers is occurring. Every new platform launch has bugs and it’s a lot easier to address them before the website has hundreds or thousands of viewers or online shoppers a day.
As headcounts in OEM marketing departments have shrunk significantly in the last two years, those remaining are multi-tasking, that is, they are trying to keep projects rolling forward to the best of their ability. Ask anyone of them and they’ll tell you they don’t have the time to do everything very well; they just have the time to do them to a satisfactory level.
Manufacturing
OEM manufacturers are always in a bit of a quandary as they are trying to balance labor and demand in the most efficient manner.
On the one hand they are receiving forecasts from sales that change frequently. Additionally, if that forecast is an increase over current production levels, they have to assess whether it’s a short-term or long-term, sustained increase. Why? Over the last two years every major S&I OEM has laid off its labor force due to high field and internal inventory and low demand for new products. Some have laid their labor forces off for multiple weeks. The decision to bring them back is a big one – the financial implications to the company are significant and if the forecast shows demand increases that don’t pan out, layoffs may have to happen again. The result: the loss of the labor force over time as the employees leave the company in search of new, more stable employment. This can ultimately lead to product shortages.
A wise leader in the industry once told me that whichever OEM figures out a way to accurately count field inventory and use it to effectively plan manufacturing would “win the game.”
To say the last two years have been turbulent for S&I OEMs is an understatement. The frequency and durations of layoffs have been unprecedented. It’s leaving scars that will take years to heal.
Engineering
S&I engineering is a bit tricky. Concepting, Building and testing new products or improving current products requires the type of environment that the products will be used in.
Yes, engineering plans a lot of its work during the winter months as is logical. However, new product development cycles can take years to complete, and if the products can only be tested in snow and cold for 6 months out of the year, it can set these projects behind. As a result, most engineering departments have developed testing methods which replicate the typical kind of forces put on equipment without the presence of snow or cold. It may include soil, sand, gravel – any heavy material which puts the equipment under load and impact. This can be a little tricky though as some of the equipment, especially those with powerheads and cooling systems, may be designed to use lubricants and fluids that have the correct specs to operate in cold weather. As a result, the summer conditions may impact engine and fluid temperatures creating overheating situations.
Another way engineering replicates winter conditions is via indoor cold-weather testing facilities. These facilities have the equipment to produce temperatures below zero for extended periods of time. Products and parts can be sent to the cold weather lab for testing. However, it is expensive and requires careful management on the side of the lead engineer.
Engineering is also typically supporting marketing by supplying them with new product models for photography and video. Furthermore, some engineers are asked to be the “on-camera” talent for shooting content. Afterall, they know the ins and outs of the products better than anyone. They’ve also probably been working on the new product for several seasons and feel a sense of ownership of it – so they want to make sure its represented in its best light. It’s not hyperbole to say that engineering and marketing working together is critical for OEMs.
Technical Service
If there’s one department that establishes some OEMs as leaders vs followers, its technical service.
This group of people represent “the human on the other line” that contractors and dealers with product issues call for help. During the winter, this group of people answers hundreds of questions a day on the phone, chat or email. They provide real-time troubleshooting and diagnostics to the caller. This is critical because time is everything in snow and ice – a contractor’s accounts have contracts with timing requirements on them and missing those contract windows means losing customers – some of which may be very large.
During the off-season tech service reps are helping with a number of projects with other departments. They may assist engineering with testing. They may assist marketing with content creation. They may attend Tradeshows. It’s a nice break from the onslaught of customer (sometimes angry) calls during the winter.
It’s easy to see why there truly an off-season for S&I OEMs isn’t – it’s just a different season. The work to build, design, sell and market products never ends. The more efficiently these departments work together, the more successful the OEM and its dealers usually are. In the end, only one thing matters to them – that the contractor can use their product, without hassle, to make money.
About the Author
Mark Klossner is founder and owner of Many Hats Marketing a Fractional CMO consultancy. He lead BOSS Snowplow’s Marketing Department for almost 16 years as Vice President of Marketing and served in high level marketing roles at Mercury Marine and John Deere Corporation prior to that.
Contact information:
Email: mark@hatsmarketing.com
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