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The B.O.S.S. Report is produced by the team behind SportsNewsSource, a daily email bulletin for the ‘Bicycle, Outdoor, and SnowSports’ markets.
The Scott Montgomery interview is a two-pager. The full PDF can be obtained from SportsNewsSource on a trial basis, see email details below. Here’s a condensed version:
BOSS: How do you feel about leaving Cannondale, and now competing against the company you helped to build?
SM: I hope to see the company recover for the sake of the people who continue to have opportunities there. A lot of very good people left the company, but there are a lot of great people that stayed, and I am very happy for those who received promotions. Really I guess itÂ’s just somebody elseÂ’s turn.
BOSS: Are there any lessons the ski and bike industries can learn from each other?
SM: You know if there is one regret I have itÂ’s that the bike industry did not team up and build an organization as strong as SIA. We have some very good organizations in the NBDA, Bikes Belong, and America Bikes, but itÂ’s not what the ski industry has.
BOSS: Other publications have said that the U.S. market is already overcrowded with bike manufacturers, how are you differentiating SCOTT USA from what is already out there?
SM: First of all, while there are quite a few brands in the U.S. market, I would take issue with the assumption that it is over-crowded. In the U.S. there are 66 bike brands; in Europe there are 144. So, while there is a lot of competition, there is no where near as much as in Europe. The bike industry is very interesting at the moment. Throughout the 90Â’s and into this decade, there was a major move by the dominant players in our industry to consolidate into three or four major players. Now, however, retailers are expanding their brand selection. If you are just a one or two brand store, you lose some of the unique aspect that makes an independent bike shop special. And letÂ’s face it, Americans are not that brand loyal. If you buy one brand, two or three years later you are not that likely to go back and but the same bike again. So, retailers are expanding to carry four, five, even six or seven major brands.
BOSS: ThereÂ’s quite a bit of difference between the EU and the U.S. when it comes to bicycles, especially full suspension MTBs. Do you see this as an issue or an opportunity for SCOTT?
SM: In the short term I see this as an opportunity. At the moment a lot of the fashions and trends in the bike industry are coming out of Europe, especially with this big road phenomenon, and what I like to call the Lance effect. He has single handedly turned road biking from a queer lycra-clad sissy sport into a hip, fashionable, healthy activity that is really good for you. I think with SCOTT we can leverage the European heritage of the brand for both road and mountain bikes. Now can I become the biggest supplier in the U.S. that way? Probably not. But, can I grow the brand for the next few years like this? Absolutely!
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