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| By Kathryn Jones | |
| Sunday, 01 July 2007 | |
 ASV Inc. is a fast-growing rubber track loader manufacturer that says it is well on its way to becoming a billion-dollar company. Edgar Hetteen, known in the snowmobile industry as the “grandfather of snowmobiling,” co-founded ASV with partner Gary Lemke. Previously, Hetteen had founded Polaris and Arctic Cat, the two largest snowmobile companies in the world, and Lemke was one of Arctic Cat’s largest dealers. In 1983, Lemke and Hetteen applied the lessons learned from snowmobiles to rugged, all-terrain rubber track vehicles, and began marketing them to other industries such as construction, landscaping, golf courses, public utilities, forestry and agriculture. “The undercarriage is very different from what everybody else has because it is all-rubber and has suspension built into it,” CEO Richard Benson says. “It’s a system that’s patented and incorporates a lot of art, as well as science. That makes it difficult for anybody else to copy. “One thing that makes us unique is we have even weight distribution that promotes better traction and less compaction,” he continues. “This is possible because our machines were designed from the bottom up to run on track. Competitors adapt rubber-coated steel track to loaders that were originally designed for tires. This results in compromises in suspension, weight distribution and other operating characteristics.” Benson explains that designing machines with all-rubber-track loaders with an even distribution of weight vs. applying rubber to heavy steel track puts less pressure on the ground. In other words, an ASV machine will leave a three-ounce per-square-inch imprint, while a human footprint leaves about six ounces. “So, if you walk across the yard, you’re putting more pressure on the ground than a 3,500-pound piece of construction equipment,” he reiterates. Strategic Growth Benson worked at Caterpillar for 35 years, running the company’s global mining division, before retiring. He had been on the ASV Board since 1999 and says he knew the company very well. When Lemke called him one day asking if he would become CEO of ASV, “I had such respect for him, the company and the people operating it, and I have such a passion for the product, I had difficulty saying no,” Benson says. He accepted Lemke’s offer and became CEO in 2006. The first thing on Benson’s agenda was to establish strategic priorities. “Coming from Caterpillar, process and strategy was very important to me,” he says. The company had grown nearly 80 percent per year between 2002 to 2005 and all of its energy was focused on meeting market demand. “There was simply not enough time and resources left to do a lot of planning,” Benson admits. Thus, ASV embarked on a strategic growth plan, with the ultimate goal to become a billion-dollar company. “We used this recent period of flat sales to do some very important things in strengthening ASV’s foundation,” he says, adding that in order to become a billion-dollar company, ASV has to have the foundation in place that would make it capable to withstand rapid growth. “First of all, we totally understand that product is the lifeblood of ASV, so we need to continuously add resources to promote product development,” Benson notes. “Patents are helpful, but they’re never perfect, so you need to stay three of four years ahead of the competition. ASV has done a beautiful job with that. “It can go from a concept to having a product running in a shorter period of time than any other company I’ve ever seen. Employees would run through brick walls to get things done.” Distribution came next on Benson’s agenda. Before, ASV had around 350 storefronts, but Benson says the company has outgrown the capacity and capability of some of its dealers. ASV also began working on advertising and brand identity, as well as expanding into the international market. “For the last five years, we were growing so rapidly in the United States, we really didn’t need to use our scarce resources trying to develop distribution in Europe,” he says. “That has now changed. Our goal is to find a company that can establish distribution on a pan-European basis. “We would like to get to a place that is similar to Caterpillar, having half of our sales in the United States and the other half in the rest of the world. Geographic diversity is something that is very valuable these days, and we are devoting considerable attention to expanding our international footprint.” |
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