RV SuperShow Day 2

I attended a session with the Newmar executive team yesterday.

Kevin Bogan, Vice President of Operations for Newmar, chaired the meeting. Other Newmar executives present included Matt Miller, now a Vice President at Winnebago Industries reporting to Michael Happe, CEO of Winnebago (Matt remains as President of Newmar Corporation), John Sammut, Vice President of Sales (Newmar), Matt Utley, Vice President of Service and Facilities Development (Newmar), Ron Stichter, Vice President of Engineering (Newmar) along with a few other folks.

Kevin opened the session and, as expected, spoke about the acquisition by Winnebago. Kevin provided the standard talking points about how everything will stay the same for customers. Even better for the future.

Kevin then introduced someone else. Someone from Winnebago.

Ashis Bhattacharya.

This is how Ashis describes himself on LinkedIn:

I am a growth-focused business leader who has worked in multiple companies (Winnebago, Honeywell, Moog, Motorola Solutions, Bain & Co) and industries (Outdoor Lifestyle, Industrial Components & Machinery, Telecommunications) around the world. I presently work with Winnebago Industries, the world-renowned brand in RVs, heading strategy, acquisitions, advanced technology and I also head the Specialty Vehicles division of the company.

My approach to business starts with gaining a deep understanding of customers and markets, and using that knowledge to work with product development and marketing teams to develop differentiated offerings and marketing approaches. I am also a big supporter of customer insights research and human-centered design as a way to understand customers better.

At Winnebago, I have worked on closing 2 key acquisitions over the past couple of years, Grand Design RV and Chris-Craft. I work with the leadership and management teams to bring in a more strategic approach to business and growth. I have also led the introduction of an all-electric RV for short-range commercial applications. Digital customer engagement is an area of great passion for me.

From what I gather, Ashis is the point person from Winnebago to oversee the integration efforts with Newmar. Ashis is a peer to Matt Miller, as they both report to the Winnebago CEO.

It was interesting to me that Ashis felt compelled to speak to this group.

Don’t get me wrong. Ashis, although not as strong a communicator as Kevin or Matt, said all the right things. He came across as friendly and seemed focused on ensuring a good customer experience. But, at the end of the day, Ashis is just another MBA; a hired gun with no particular focus or passion about the RV lifestyle. He has been with Winnebago just over three years. He brings no prior experience or exposure to the RV industry. I doubt that he has ever spent any time using an RV.

Newmar is now part of a publicly traded business, accountable to shareholders. Things will change for the company. Hopefully for the better, but, knowing how public corporations work, especially those ones that are run by MBAs, I’m not so sure.

The format of the meeting was largely a Q&A session with the attendees. I did not learn much new except for Newmar’s plans to spin out a mobile service offering in a few select areas starting with Florida.

Later in the day, Lorraine and I spent time looking at the Newmar, Entegra, and Tiffin coaches. That was in between extended sessions talking with people.

In the Newmar section, we really loved the Essex. That was our favourite Newmar coach. In the Entegra section, well, let’s just say that Thor followed through on Bob Martin’s promise to decontent their high-end coaches (Bob is CEO of Thor). We would not buy an Entegra coach. Lorraine and I were really impressed with a 40-foot Tiffin Phaeton coach. Really well done with an expansive floor plan that seemed much larger than our coach. Nice bus. We also enjoyed walking through the Allegro Bus coaches.

We will be back to the show today. We will also be in a meeting with ITR, manufacturer of the OASIS heating system. I wonder if they have any spare pumps? I’ve already replaced two defective ones and I need to replace a third.

Third day dry camping. All good so far. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning.