Steve Menneto, 49, is Vice President of Motorcycles for Polaris Industries Inc., and as such he’s the man who ultimately sold his fellow members on the Polaris board the idea of acquiring Indian. Having succeeded in doing so, he was then entrusted with the task of making it work. A task that he and his team at Polaris headquarters in Medina, Minnesota seem to have discharged exceptionally well, with Indian and Victory sales ramping up a massive 74 percent year-on-year ($137.4 million in the first quarter of 2015 as a part of Polaris’ record first quarter sales totaling $1,033.3 million, up 16 percent from last year’s first quarter).
Polaris has traditionally declined to reveal actual production numbers, but from that dollar volume it’s possible to extrapolate that it built just over 8,000 motorcycles from January to March this year at its Spirit Lake, Iowa motorcycle plant. It is aiming to deliver more than 30,000 bikes this year, while it searches for a way to increase volume to meet the significant demand for its two-wheeled products, fueled especially by orders for the new Scout model launched last August.
Menneto has a unique understanding of the powersports industry from both sides of the marketplace. He started out his business life as a Polaris dealer in New York, before crossing the bridge to join the company 17 years ago, becoming Director of Sales for Polaris’ Motorcycles Division. He took over responsibility for Victory Motorcycles from Mark Blackwell in May 2009. After Polaris purchased Indian in April 2011 from British entrepreneur Stephen Julius’s Stellican Corp., he was promoted to Vice President of Motorcycles in August 2011. Visiting him in his office in Minnesota brought the chance to find more about his plans for Victory as well as Indian—including bringing what was once America’s most famous competition brand back to the racetrack.
Steve, you must be pretty satisfied that you managed to persuade your board of management to purchase Indian, with your first quarter results showing such a steep rise in motorcycle sales year-on-year.
Actually, our President and CEO Scott Wine and I were the ones who jointly persuaded the board to do that, but we’re indeed pleased about where Indian is right now. We know we’re only at the beginning of building a business with great products, but right now we’re working on creating a fine ownership experience.
We’re ahead of plan on our growth, which we’re excited about, and we’re happy with where we are on our dealer counts at home and abroad. We have a little over 200 dealers right now in North America, and about 150 dealers overseas for Indian, and it’s exciting because of the energy and the passion behind it. In terms of applicants we could easily have had a couple thousand dealers, just like that. I mean that literally, because the interest was so high because of the values of the Indian brand. But when we started focusing on their commitment to serving the customer and creating a great ownership experience, then we were able to whittle it right down to the folks that are truly interested in serving the brand.
How many of those dealers in North America sell both Victory and Indian?
About half, and outside North America it’s about 80 percent.
Do you think one helps build volume in the other?
We’ve seen it happen, actually. Sometimes you get people coming in through the door to look at an Indian but they’re more a modern style person and say “That Magnum, that X1, that’s way cool” and they end up going that way. Or in reverse they come in potentially after a Victory, and then find the Indian Dark Horse is a real eye-catcher that’s also way cool. I’ve seen them switch.
Before you launched Indian you told me that you perceived Indian’s customer base as being older and more traditionally minded, whereas Victory’s was younger and more technology focused. Has that in fact turned out to be the case?
Yes and no. What we see is the Touring customer in Indian is a little older than Victory’s, but when you look at Dark Horse and Scout of course, now you’re starting to see us go to a younger age in demographics. What we’re trying to work on is thinking about the Indian brand as one for all ages. There’s no reason for us to pigeonhole any particular age group or rider group with Indian. With Victory being more performance focused, I think we can start to get away from age groups. So it’s more about how do you use that bike and want to have fun with it, and what does that bike say about you—that counts most.
To read the rest of the interview with Polaris’ Vice President of Motorcycles, Steve Menneto, in issue 28 of Cycle News, click here
