EDITOR’S NOTE

STAKEHOLDERS: Ignoring any critical facet of any business is inviting disaster. And most effective CEOs learned that early in CEO school (or the school of hard knocks). Remember the old “kneeboneis-connected-to-the-shinbone” song? Every piece is interconnected and every piece matters. Ignoring the plight of the Dealer to pander to the shareholders is a dangerously untenable position for a CEO.

A Dealer’s job is simple. We need to be sustainably profitable while exceeding customer expectations and grow the business. All of these things are critically important… and ultimately connected to the myriad of concerns facing the CEO.

Synergy. Ecosystem. Stakeholders — it gets complicated. But the fact is, “we are all in this together.” Forget that one, and you won’t be a CEO (or a Dealer) very long.

And that is the name of that tune!

World’s Luckiest Man

By Bob Althoff

DEALERS MATTER

Bob

The life of a CEO at any major enterprise is, in a word, complicated. Take for example, say, a manufacturer of motorcycles and such. They deal with so many competing interests, suppliers, shareholders, unions, c-suite denizens, rank and file staff, Supply chain SNAFUs, governments with their regulations and tariffs, the public as final consumers… oh, and Dealers, too.

SYNERGY: As much as we at Dealernews think the sun and moon revolve around Dealers and the critical role we play in creating “final demand” for a product, the fact is we as Dealers are just a part of an overall powersports ecosystem. Our frontline priorities as Dealers are not necessarily the priorities of any OEM CEO, but by necessity we are involved in a synergistic relationship.

ECOSYSTEM: We could argue about how important we are. Doing so is a waste of breath. But what is dead certain is that we are equally important as any of the stakeholders. And for the sake of brevity here, let’s posit that we are no more or no less important than any of our fellows in the ecosystem.

CEOs can find themselves in the hot seat!