-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of The Maaslands Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 2:14 PM To: Classic Rendezvous Subject: I: [CR]Campagnolo survival redux (long)
Steven Maasland wrote:
There is no doubt that the US market was the single biggest and had the single biggest individual distributors. It is also the most unstable, with huge oscillations. This does more to damage a company than you can imagine. The US market however never had the same market penetration as enjoyed by Campagnolo in Europe. If you compare on a per capita basis, or per bike basis, the US market has always been less important than most European markets.
Reply:
The main reason Specialized and I am sure others in the USA quit selling Campagnolo was due to grey market. So, in my opinion, Campagnolo refused to fix problems that damaged the long term success in this market. Once the bike shops stopped selling the parts because of low price mail order companies then of course the market will be unstable. It seemed to me either there were some un-official out the back door deals at Campi, or else they just did not care about USA distributors.
Steven Maasland wrote:
Campagnolo as a company has never been arrogant in my experience. The reality was more likely that they preferred their tried and true way of testing all modifications and prototypes out in the field on the bikes of pro racers. As is common knowledge, Campagnolo invariably would fieldtest their new ideas out on the pros bikes prior to their launch. Coming from my most recent job in the tennis field, I can assure you that we rarely took any technical suggestions from our customers, preferring to depend on our sponsored pros for technical suggestions. The customer's input was only sought and respected when it came to price points, packaging and cosmetics. I believe that this is common in most high end sporting goods. Campagnolo has always used top-down marketing, whihc is just the opposite of what is done in virtually all Japanese companies. Furthermore, your experience dealing with both the Japanese and the Italians will demonstrate that to get something approved in Japan, you need to discuss with a committee of people always headed up by somebody who spoke English, whereas in Italy, you can get something produced with the sayso of only one person. Unfortunately, this person invariably only speaks dialect or dialect and a smattering of Italian. In Japan with a language that is totally different form English, you can survive in business with only English, but in Italy, it is my opinion that you must speak Italian to be successful in business.
Reply:
Please take this as an example of arrogance at Campagnolo. In the early '80's I am very sure the market for Campi parts was going down. This could explain the grey market dumping. Anyway, this was when MTB was really taking off in the USA. Suntour and Shimano were really keen to find out what parts would suit this new trend. Valentino and his top guys came to visit us in San Jose. We showed them the MTB bikes, took them to dealers, talked about the parts. Then we have a meeting and he said "I don't think the Italian rider will ever ride this kind of bike". Real dismissive, not even interested in the details of what we had to offer. Remember, at the time Campi had to do something about this sales slump. So then, we go to the next bike show and here is this new group of MTB parts from Campagnolo! I am sure not too many of you guys ever saw this stuff, as it did not sell at all. No way suitable for the market. So I see this as arrogant, Specialized offers to help them with something they (or the pro road racers) know nothing about and they dis us.
I understand your point about using pro racer to test product. But a bicycle is not a tennis racket. It is possible to improve performance using scientific study. Pro road racers are some of the more resistant to change people in the whole cycling universe. So if some new thinking can come into product design gains can be made. In the past 20 years this new thinking came very much from MTB development, i.e. from USA and Japanese R & D.
Steven Maasland wrote:
I almost fully agree with this statement. The sole change that I would make, would be to move away from it solely being Shimano doing the pushing. One of the directors at Campagnolo told me in about 1997 that neither Shimano nor Campagnolo were then leading in innovations anymore. He said it were mainly the small boutique component makers who were making the newest and the best use of technology. He also stated that whereas he then thought that their Record components were finally once again better than anything made by Shimano (He admitted that they fell very far behind for many years), Campagnolo struggled tremendously to differentiate between their difference ranges. Shimano, with their numerous production sites and large R & D budget also being used for robotics and operations were able to do this more ably.
Reply:
Other than the case of wheels can you give an example of who these small parts makers are? Let me tell you if any gains were to be made in any Dura-Ace parts and I could see it I would jump on it. High end road bike parts are at a very high level today. If it's good enough for Lance?
Jim Merz
Bainbridge Is. WA