Opening up the Tadano club

Schiller joined Tadano America Corporation (TAC) in August 2016, working alongside departing president Yo Kakinuma for six months, before taking on sole responsibility as CEO and president in April.

TAC is the US sales subsidiary for Tadano’s wheeled mobiles. US based telecrawler business Tadano Mantis handles its own sales.

Schiller says that, based on his experiences at Liebherr and Manitowoc, he is impressed by Tadano: “Tadano seems to have absolutely the right balance in terms of process, procedure, and structure.

It’s been a lot of fun, learning their structure and their approach to business. While they are a traded company, they have much of the feel of a family business.”

He welcomes the headquarters’ flexible approach. “While products are developed in Germany and Japan, they allow local businesses to work with autonomy to develop products for their markets.

“They don’t operate remotely from HQ, they recognise what local businesses know, and tailor products to the market.”

That flexibility extends not just to how products are designed, but to how the company builds its sales and support network.

“TAC has several dealerships, while other parts of the world sell direct. We had some local dealers, and have added some that know specific markets.”

One of Schiller’s first projects as president has been to develop the TAC sales team, in an attempt to open the doors of the business to new customers.

“One thing that limited the sale of Tadano cranes [in the US], was there was a bit of a Tadano ‘club’, and it was not always obvious how to join it. Now, we have people in the field, inviting people to join that club.

“People tell us, once they have their first one, that they wanted one for years, but didn’t know how to buy one.”

For many years, one of the key figures guiding customers into the Tadano ‘club’ was national accounts manager Ron Dogotch.

“Ron has been a leading figure, we’ve now hired another general manager, Ken Butz. And have new regional managers in the midwest, north east, and southern states, greatly expanding the sales team.

“We have added a couple of dealers, and formalised some agreements with long term partners. For example, Exact Crane, had been a partner, and is now a dealer.”

Schiller’s appointment, and his work to build the company’s sales network, comes at a challenging time for crane manufacturers in the US. Crane sales in the country are dominated by rough terrains, and, with oil prices low, this equipment largely isn’t selling.

“Right now the entire rough terrain market is soft. The rough terrain market has shrunk about 30% a year over the last three years.

“Sales activity that is still present, is in the large machines. Historically we have sold all the way from 15t to 135t. Where is the market right now? It’s in the larger range.”

At this year’s ConExpo, and the last one, Tadano launched some of the biggest rough terrains in the world, directly targeting US customers. This year, Schiller’s old colleagues at Liebherr re-entered the rough terrain market with their own high capacity machines.

He welcomes this move. “I like good competition, and Liebherr is good competition. We’re intensely interested in the machine, we had a quick look at Conexpo. We’re looking forward to seeing it in the field. We’ve had some customers say they will buy some, who already have Tadano products. So we expect some head-to-head comparison.”

But, Liebherr’s re-entry is still under way, and the rough terrain market is still tough. Instead, sales are focused on all terrains.

“The need for cranes is just at the larger end of the market. Sales of the larger all terrains are very good, and delivery times extend several months,” Schiller says.

“The all terrain market remains good, in fact it looks to be growing a bit. We think the entire industry is benefiting from up spring in this market. There are more people approaching us for all terrains.

“There’s been a lot of interest in the release of the 600t all terrain, which is now scheduled for next year. They feel there is a need for a machine of this capacity without superlift and boom system.”

While customers anticipate the new 600-tonner’s innovative Triple Boom, one of the technologies Schiller finds most beneficial, across the range, is the company’s fleet management system.

“People are moving towards using fleet management software packages. [When they do] they see that there’s a significantly lower cost of ownership compared to competitors. We have customers saying they are paying up to eight times more for rival products.

“We’re glad people use these software packages, as it reinforces the advantages of the Tadano product.”