Jacobsen President Comments on Recent Dixie Chopper Acquisition

April 28 -- Jacobsen's recent acquisition of Dixie Chopper reflects the momentum the mower manufacturer has built in the turf industry over the last several years. This success breeds confidence to do more ambitious things in the turf market, says Jacobsen President David Withers.

In an exclusive interview with GCI, Withers, who has served as Jacobsen's president since 2011, says in addition to strong brand recognition and reputation in the turf market Dixie Chopper was an attractive target because there was zero product overlap. The acquisition provided a unique opportunity to cross-pollinate ideas.

"At Jacobsen, we’ve been developing hybrid and electric technology for years and these guys understand how rotary mowers interact with the grass in different conditions," he says. "[The move] enhances both products lines by the strength of each.”

In addition, while Jacobsen has a significant presence in the North American golf market, in the international market that presence is more split between the golf and municipal markets.

"This is where what we see the counter-cyclical nature of the two sides coming into play," he says. "When the private sector is doing well, quite often governments and municipalities spend less and this happens in reverse where government spends more when the private sector is struggling.

"Expanding our portfolio into municipal markets protects us when one of the two sectors goes into a downturn and gives Jacobsen more stability long-term and allows us to compete with our competitors on a broader base," Withers adds. "Today, we only compete with John Deere and Toro in the golf segment and this allows us to now complete in the commercial and landscape markets as well.”

From a market perspective, it appears parent company Textron has refocused its investment on Jacobsen. Withers concurs, adding that Jacobsen's success in the golf market has proven it can grow and expand its market presence.

"Every company is in either an upward spiral or a downward spiral," he says. "You’re either spending less, cut people and guess what, you sell less. We’re in an upward spiral, we’re making good profitability, moving the business forward and therefore you invest more into new products and better service to customers and they tend to reward you for that and that in turn leads to more sales."

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A New Era at Jacobsen

December 19 -- David Withers, the newly minted president of Jacobsen, intends to focus on three things: customers, customers, customers.

We caught up with the man who now leads the Orange team in golf’s Big 3 as he was entering his fourth month in the job and beginning to implement some of the changes he believes will restore the manufacturer’s reputation and market share to its previous highs.

You came up from the technical side. Do you find yourself still poking around engines?
It’s too true! I have to stop myself from designing during product meetings. I love working with machines. That’s been a labor of love for me so I’ve had to spend far more time learning the business side.”

What’s priority one for you at the helm?
A lot of the issues that had hurt us were already fixed, particularly the parts and service problems. The challenge now is that we’re simply not externally focused enough. We need to be more involved and focused on the customers. You grow credibility by being out there and being involved. You have to be visible so we’re doing a lot more customer interaction. We’re going to put more feet on the street, so to speak. We’ve freed up money to hire more ‘forward-facing’ people and we’ve just named a new vice president of customer care, Tony Brown who’d been with Kioti tractors, who will be 100-percent focused on that.

What’s standing in the way of your business goals for Jacobsen?
Time, mainly. We can do it. It’s just a matter of how quickly. Unfortunately, we’re still suffering from the perception that our parts, service and backup isn’t as good as others. If anything, we’ve gone over the top on the inventory we carry and, as I said, fixed the reality. But to change the perceptions, we need to build relationships and confidence to the point where superintendents will say, ‘I’ll switch.’ We have to build relationships first at our level – the corporate level. We may have relied too heavily on dealers for that in the past. They look after existing customers well. We need to do a better job to help them bring new ones in.

What’s your take on the “new normal” in the U.S. golf market and how it impacts companies like Jacobsen?
There has been a structural shift in buying habits. We used to be able to count on equipment churning every five years. In today’s market, they just don’t churn as fast so it’s six or seven years. My guess is that (the market) will settle but with a longer replacement cycle. But, given our position, we can still grow. It’s actually advantageous to have lower market share in a shrinking market to achieve growth. The bottom line for us is to focus on the ‘three Bs”:  Build good relations, Build a good machine and Back it up. It’s just a matter of execution from there.

How do you segment the market and where to focus your sales efforts?
My belief is that the market is splitting. You cannot serve it with one product per category. The high end is very interested in quality and new technologies. There, for example, we offer the Eclipse 322 with a higher sticker but noticeable, measurable and provable improvement in quality of cut. But, we also have value offerings for courses out there that are doing the very best they can with limited budgets. Those guys still need machinery that’s within their reach. Our portfolio moving forward will reflect the fact that we have to lead in both premium and value product lines.

What are you hearing from dealers?
I’ve met quite a few of them but not all of them quite yet. The ones I’ve met are very supportive of us being more active, more aggressive and more focused on building new customer relationships. I also know from them that I’m very lucky that I’ve come into this at a time when Dan (Wilkinson) had fixed a lot of the issues that troubled them.

So what can the golf market expect from David Withers at the helm of Jacobsen?
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I will stick to the Three Bs. I try to keep the business simple so everything flows from that. Golf is a relationship industry. We’ve done the hard work on the product, parts and service side…now it’s a matter for us to be visible, meet more of our customers and build relationships with them. They want Jacobsen to succeed because they like our products and they want a valid choice. We will be out there every day in front of customers to give them that choice.
 

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