Tucker Rocky — restructure

Then
Due to a rapid growth pace in the late ‘90s, Tucker Rocky made a number of alterations within the company. President Steve Johnson says at the time, the company consolidated its warehouse infrastructure and built new computer systems to support the fast development. “With all good intentions, there were some difficult challenges with system implementation,” he said. “The most significant being the Internet-based ordering system that went live in February of 2000. Dealers began to lose confidence in the company, and in October 2000, LDI (parent company of Tucker Rocky) hired Johnson as the new president of Tucker Rocky to help turn things around.” One of the first things Johnson did was hire more talent, which included a new CFO, CIO and vice president of products and sourcing. From there, Johnson said the team focused on the basics: The IT group started to build what is now TRDealer, the Internet ordering system that allowed management to dissect the performance of the selling system and the market. The second area of focus was the fill rate and customer service. “Tucker had too much of the wrong inventory and not enough of the right inventory,” Johnson said and added the products group put in various systems to improve those fill rates. The company also worked on its product portfolio. “Tucker had focused on bringing in many more manufacturers to fill out the product portfolio,” Johnson noted, “but it also had to rebuild many of the brands that it owned.” All of the brands went back to the drawing board to improve designs, recast the marketing strategy, add to the product line and to improve the quality and value of the companies’ products. Johnson says that since 2000, Tucker has added hundreds of new suppliers and tens of thousands of new products. Many of those went through significant improvements by focusing on product design, sourcing and marketing. After the new processes were in place, it became apparent to Tucker Rocky that the sales force was stretched too thin, so it added new territories to increase sales growth. In 2003, Tim Pritchard was brought in to lead the sales effort where he has utilized the selling system’s capability and capacity. “They found that by reducing the number of dealerships assigned to outside sales representatives,” Johnson said, “they could spend more quality time in each dealership, do a better job in servicing the dealership and earn back the confidence of dealers. With enough facts in place, Tucker proceeded to add to their sales team.”

Turning point & now
Tucker Rocky challenged nearly every, if not all, its business practices, which resulted in a number of personnel and operational adjustments. Johnson says through those changes, the company was able to improve its efficiency and customer service. “(The company) has gone through a trial by fire and come out a stronger and much better distributor,” he said. “The support of dealers and vendors through the tough times and the good times has been gratifying. Tucker is committed to continue to challenge its methods, its products and its strategies, and it’ll continue to search and find ways to refine who they are and be a better partner to serve the dealer base in the motorcycle industry.”