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We’d had a great day of riding. It was now early evening, and Kim and I decided to go out for dinner at a tiny BYOB diner near our home in Vermont. We left the bikes at home, grabbed a bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle Reisling and wandered over.
A chance meeting with Frank
We took our time enjoying dinner and the little place was empty. It was close to closing when a couple entered. They ordered some food “to go” and sat at a table waiting for it to be delivered.
Kim and I had finished off less than half of our bottle of wine and decided to offer the remainder to them. We introduced ourselves, and they introduced themselves as Frank and Barbara O’Connell.
We chatted for a while and discovered they were both riders. They lived nearby and told us a little about their riding backgrounds and some of their travels. During our chat, Frank told us that Barbara was no slouch in the riding department and had led a group of hundreds of Indian riders across the USA over a three-week period. He also said that he sometimes rode on the back of Barbara’s bike. Although he didn’t say much about his riding, it didn’t matter; we were all riders.
Frank becomes CEO of Indian
Near the end of our chat, Frank mentioned that he had once been the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Indian Motorcycles. What? Frank was the CEO of “the” Indian Motorcycle Company? I was more than a bit surprised by this tidbit. If you think of the stereotypical cruiser rider, Frank didn’t look the type. He is not a big man, is soft-spoken, and has an easy smile.
But as we chatted more, it became clear that Frank was more than a rider; he had motorcycling in him. We chatted a little more about Indian and Frank told me that being the CEO of Indian was wonderful. But he also said that getting into a business you love can break your heart.
I understood his comment since, at the time of our meeting, Indian was once again a dead brand. I wondered what had happened to the iconic brand under Frank’s leadership and what caused it to fail.
Jump First / Think Fast
Several years later, I did learn what happened and the root causes of Indian’s failure. My new knowledge comes courtesy of a book that Frank recently wrote called Jump First / Think Fast. I not only know what caused the downfall of Indian, but I also learned about Frank’s impressive business background. Without going into too many specifics, before trying to revive the Indian brand, Frank ran companies like Reebok, HBO Video, Fox Interactive (video games), Skybox trading cards, and Gibson Greetings. So why did Indian fail?
One section of Frank’s book talks about being the CEO of Indian Motorcycle. Image courtesy of Frank O’Connell
Not experts
It turns out it was a combination of problems as well as a miscalculation as to how much money it would take to fix Indian. At the time, the company was being operated by an investment group with several other companies, including custom motorcycle fabricator California Motorcycle Company (CMC).
While CMC had been building beautiful custom motorcycles for quite some time, they had little experience in manufacturing processes, production, and quality assurance. Even with $100M in cash from the investment group, Indian was still foundering. The investment group thought Frank might be able to turn the brand around and offered him the CEO slot.
Taking the reins
If he accepted, Frank’s job would be to determine all of Indian’s problems. He would then have to develop and implement a strategy to take the company from being a low-quantity custom bike shop to a highly-skilled, high-quantity motorcycle manufacturer. It would be no small task.
Frank knew it and at first thought that he would rather be a consultant rather than take the company’s reins. But his love for motorcycles and the challenge of rebuilding a brand he knew and loved, convinced him to take the job.
Once Frank accepted and had a chance to evaluate the company thoroughly, it became clear that there were many problems. His book lists his initial assessment of the company’s top 10 issues. Even worse, several of them, taken individually, could be fatal to the company.
Frank was the CEO of Indian Motorcycle from 2000 to 2004.Photo courtesy of Frank O’Connell
Motorcycle shop versus motorcycle manufacturer
CMC was a custom motorcycle fabrication shop, not an OEM with teams of highly trained engineers, manufacturing processes, and capable quality assurance organizations. These things led to Indian putting out good-looking motorcycles, but also contributed to design and quality issues.
In keeping with the fabrication shop mentality, Indian did not produce many critical components necessary to build good machines. For example, instead of designing and manufacturing their own engines, they bought off-the-shelf S&S units.
As a result, they had to build the bike around that engine. They couldn’t readily make necessary adjustments and couldn’t easily control quality. In addition, the off the shelf engine also had the side effect of making the Indian brand seem like a clone of the more popular Harley-Davidson models. It was clear to Frank that Indian would have to design and build its own engine, and that would be a costly proposition.
Quality issues
There were also many quality issues and known instances of failing parts. One in particular, the bike’s big S fender, kept cracking. Fixing the issue was expensive, and the problem was hurting the brand itself.
Because of poor quality, Indian’s previously delivered bikes became an albatross around Indian’s neck. Warranty repairs were expensive. Until the company could up its quality control game, they were doomed to incur costs that could lead to its demise. Indian’s foundation had been poorly built, and it was now crumbling.
Changes too late
Ultimately, Indian did design and manufacture its own engine, the Power Plus 100. However, although they had built up their dealer network, quality control was increasing, design was improving, and sales were rising, warranty repairs and the necessary changes were too quickly burning their available cash.
It was becoming clear that the changes were a little too late. Indian was once again failing. Consulting with the investors, Frank began to shop Indian around to other companies. He even ended up in discussions with Polaris. And while Frank thought that the Indian brand could have complemented Polaris’ products, Polaris decided that they would instead try to grow their (now failed) Victory brand.
Interestingly, years later, Polaris’ Victory brand would fail. Picking up the left over pieces of Indian, Polaris ultimately was able to resurrect the brand successfully and several years in is now doing its best to eat into Harley-Davidson’s market share.
If you would like to know more details about the Indian motorcycles of the time, learn to think differently, and trust your business instincts, you can buy his book here and on Amazon.
The post The Man Who Wanted To Rebuild Indian Motorcycle appeared first on Adventure Rider.
