Jon Flickinger, Buell President and COO interviewed

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Jon Flickinger-Buell President & COO interviewed

By Tor Sagen, Paris 2007

Jon Flickinger (48) is the President & Chief Operating Officer of Buell motorcycle company and Vice President in Harley-Davidson. Anything happening with Buell has to be approved by this man and he is the main link to the parent company Harley-Davidson. Recently the Buell 1125R was launched with the company’s first ever liquid cooled engine. But at the same time another big project, the 450 Dirt bike was shelved. Flickinger explains why in this interview.

Q: What is your role in Buell Motorcycle Company?

A: My primary role is to make Buell successful and what I do is I get the 1125R and other programmes approved by the board of directors and get support for the investment in the Buell brand. I have to make sure that we have a solid business case and Erik has got the responsibility to make sure the products are exciting and that they work well which helps the business case work better. My job is to go and get that investment approved and ensure good operating practises. As we have gotten more and more successful with variably increasing investments we need to bring more and more products to the market.

Q: In terms of investments, how are you doing now? Have you got free access to do whatever you like?

A: I would say that we can’t do whatever we want as we are still very small. We will build about 12.500 motorcycles this year so we’re a pretty small company. So we have to make smart investments and ones that are giving us a good return. We don’t have unlimited access to investment, as a business we are funding our own programme. It’s not like Harley is giving us all the money that we want. We have to be able to pay for it, pay for the depreciation of investment and get a return for the parent company. Within limits we have access to investments.

Q: What are the plans for the 1125R as a platform? Can we expect an expansion similar to the XB models?

A: I think you could expect that we will expand the use of that power train into other segments of the market. I think you can expect a similar approach as we have done with the XB. We take a basic platform and make sure that it works right for different segments of the market.

Q: Will we continue to see only sports bikes from Buell? I felt that the 1125R engine could be applied to different models. Sports touring?

A: I think we’re going to focus on streetfighters. The products of the brand are pretty well known for it now. Certainly we have dreams about expanding beyond that. We are going to hit the biggest part of the market first before we change into those other parts of the market.

Q: It’d be great in the Ulysses?

A: Right, I think the power train- you have experienced it on the road, and it’s a great power train. There are still lots of potential in the power train so we plan to use it on a number of future products and expand the offering of that platform (1125R).

Q: How quickly do you intend to do so (expansion)? How aggressively?

A: I wouldn’t go into any details on that.

Q: One year or…

A: I wouldn’t, hopefully we could meet that expectation.

Q: What happened to the dirt bike? It sounded like the project was very advanced?

A: I wouldn’t say that it was literally developed, but we made some good progress and I think we are going back to one of your first questions about what investments are right to make at a given point in time. We were at a point where we had to re-apprise the programme because we had learnt some new things. The market is a constantly changing market with different stipulations. There are future racing rules that could affect our success in this segment. We took all of that into account and decided that before now we want to focus on some other product in other segments. It’s disappointing to all of us; certainly Erik and I are not happy about having to stop a programme like that. But we think it is the right thing allowing us to focus all our efforts on street products.

Q: Were there any external factors playing into the decision?

A: Certainly, I think that those factors are the biggest. I think that we were well enough along to know that we would have had a very competitive and great product. It was primarily external factors that drove the decision. -Particularly Noise, Emissions and racing regulations coming up in the near future. There have been indications that rules will change the 450 class in the future. We have started to hear things that may affect the viability of that class. I think it is those external factors that played as much a role as any in the decision.

Q: Is there a BRP-Rotax link in all of this, specifically related to the dirt bike project?

A: Well, we never did announce who our partner was going to be for the power train. But I think you can narrow it down to one or two companies. -Harley-Davidson and BRP-Rotax being those two primaries for the power train. It’s not probably feasible for a small company to develop more than one or two relationships with an engine manufacturer. I won’t be specific about who it was going to be for the 450.

Q: Without saying it was BRP-Rotax, was the power train ever an issue in the final decision to shelve the dirt bike?

A: Which you just did (say BRP-Rotax. Whilst laughing. Ed). We were very happy with the power train.

Q: Was it competitive?

A: Our goal for the programme would have been for it to be highly competitive. That is our goal with any product and to be relevant. One of the things that we would have done with that programme like we do with other programmes like the 1125R and XB’s, would be a high level of innovation and engineering that Erik is known for. -To make the product better for the customer. -Reduce parts counts, make multi-functional use of parts and it would have made the product (dirt bike) a very good product.

Q: Erik has told me already that there are several solutions that would have been applied to this product that can still be applied to other products. Will you?

A: It wasn’t a wasted effort, we did get great learning’s from it. Some really cool technology that can be applied to some future products. I am sure you are going to figure that out, Erik has already started working on those. There was some wasted effort obviously but we got enough out of it to be able to put it into future products.

Q: Is the product in such a state of development now that you could pick it up again in let’s say 5 years time?

A: There are certainly certain things that we could pick up in the future, but you know it as well as anybody that what applies today-in three-four-five years from now may not be as relevant because the products keep getting better all the time. So certainly some parts could be used, whilst other parts we would have to start all over again.

Q: So basically that means that Buell will not be a dirt bike manufacturer?

A: For the time being that’s what it means. I don’t want to say never on anything because we want to expand in a number of areas. But for the time being we are not going to make any offroad-only products.

Q: What are the exact reasons that you will not show the press any of the concept pictures?

A: Our plans would have been to do that very soon. We were in a place where we were about to. Had we decided to continue on the programme we would probably have started to put some of it on the website. -Some of the testing that we were doing and more. Part of our plan would be to build our credibility and share more of the behind the scenes activity. -To allow people to understand the product and believe in it. But in any project or any programme there’s the right time to do things and we were at that point where we had decided, if we had continued, to start showing some photography and maybe even testing.

Q: But that’s not going to happen now at all?

A: Probably not.

Q: Let me move over from the dirt bike to another area I believe people are interested in regarding the Buell/Harley-Davidson dealership situation. At some dealers I have seen myself, the Buell motorcycles seem to be hidden in a corner behind the Harleys. Have you got any plans to sell Buell’s in other dealerships than just Harley-Davidson? Would it not be beneficial for Buell to be alongside European brands such as certain Italian brands?

A:  In the near term, no. In most all of our markets Buell will continue to be distributed through our Harley-Davidson dealerships. I think you could anticipate as we grow and the dealers grow the business they will dedicate more space for Buell. We have already seen larger dealers in larger markets doing it. In smaller markets where the sales potential is smaller, even though there might be more potential in certain markets than we are realizing, it’s still not really viable for Buell to be a stand-alone brand.

Q: I was thinking, why not sell Buell next to Ducati’s, Aprilia’s…?

A: It is a strategic reason that the Buell brand exists. Part of that is that it is associated with the Harley brand. The customers are different, but strategically we want the two brands presented together. In a multi-brand environment you don’t get the same knowledge and expertise as in a stand-alone environment.

There has been speculation and belief that the Buell brand would be better in a sports bike environment. But there are more downsides to that and the environments where the brand could end up are not necessarily how we would like it to be. But we have to earn it with the dealerships. When we give the dealer a line of products that deliver a better result for the dealer they will give us more dedicated space and people. Over time we will get those dedicated facilities.

Q: So in the future, you could see Buell dealerships with Harley’s in the corner?

A: (laughter) Well, I don’t know whether that will ever happen and we want both brands to be highly successful. I challenged the European dealers at the summer meeting to think about the day when the Buell brand will be as big and strong as the Harley brand. And certainly in Europe where there is a sport orientated market the potential is there. We have to bring more products to help that happen and we will.

Q: Do you believe in the philosophy “race on Sunday and sell on Monday”?

A: That’s a philosophy that tends to be more sales focused and I don’t think that the racing today delivers immediate sales results. Racing today is more about building a brand and an image of the brand that presents success, durability and competitiveness. So I think that would be racing for us, to make people more excited about the brand. The Buell brand today has a lot of opportunities to develop the brand awareness and respect for the brand. To grow we need to expand the pool of people thats hearts is with Buell and racing is one of the best ways of doing that. It will happen one of these days.

Q: Where do you see Buell in 10 years time?

A: We certainly want to be one of the fastest growing brands over the next ten years. We think we can be. In ten years time we definitely want to be one of the top sports bike brands. We are not going to be in every segment of the market, but in the segments where we choose to compete we want to be recognised as one of the most exciting and unique brands. –To keep designing and engineering in a way true to Erik’s philosophy. We will be a lot bigger than we are today.