News
Catching up with David Withers
Pitchcare editor, Kerry Haywood, caught up with David Withers at BTME to discuss his interesting career path from a demonstrator to where he is today - one of eight Presidents in the multi-industry company Textron Inc.
David Withers’ rise to become President and CEO of Jacobsen began way back in 1988 as a humble sales rep for Charterhouse Turf Machinery, when he joined them in as a demonstrator, “running around the country selling verti-drains, seeders etc.,” as he puts it.
In 1992, he was approached by Jacobsen and asked to join them as a sales representative for their South West region, before moving into Corporate Accounts for the company in 1995 and, what he describes as “one of the best jobs I ever had”. His focus was on developing business with key customers across Europe, which was something no other company was doing at that time.
In 1998, David became UK Sales Manager for the group, and a very successful Jacobsen bought Ransomes, only to really struggle with the integration, subsequent lost market share and a high turnover of staff; “not good for any business,” commented David.
1999 to 2003 was a global struggle but, in 2004, David became Managing Director at Ipswich, running all aspects of European and International business for Jacobsen and the fight back had started. Under his guidance, they
achieved significantly higher market share and financial success, and it was off the back of this that David became President in 2011 and moved to America with his wife.
David commented: “The last twenty-five years or so have been great. I wanted this job from the very first day I started at Jacobsen, but I never expected it to happen. I always wanted to progress my career and move up in the organisation and I felt I had a great understanding of the industry and what we needed to do to be successful.”
“Certainly, in the last four to five years, our shares have increased in value, financial performance has improved and everything has turned round. We are a different shaped company to five years ago and we have gone from 500 to 1000 employees. We are going to continue to develop great products and maintain the three things that customers value the most; the three Bs - Building relationships, Building good machines and Backing them up.”
“I put great emphasis on this, as customers want a relationship with us, they want to understand who we are and what we do, they want machines to be great, reliable and
meet all their needs, and they need back up if it breaks down. We will continue to follow this strategy globally and you can really see that in the new products. A differentiating feature between us and our competitors is that we truly understand what our customers want and need.”
“Product development means that the customer is able to be more productive at a lower cost, regardless of what sector they are in. We understand how amazing it is that our customers work within tight budgets and yet still achieve great results. The more we can help that by driving productivity, more up time and less cost, the better it is for the industry, and that’s ultimately what I’m striving for,” added David.
Despite the role and subsequent pressures that go with it, David told me the best bit of his job, and what he enjoys the most, is playing around with machines, and heading out on customer visits to
David Withers speaking at BTME 2016
get hands-on. “Industry life in America is not too different to the UK. The main difference is that golf clubs and other large facilities have their own technicians, which is not so common here.”
David concluded: “It's a great industry - everyone is nice to each other, we get on well with our competitors and customers are friendly. There are a lot of opportunities to fill out our portfolio and I’ve not been this excited about our product range for twenty years.”
Testament to this saw BTME debuts for the new Jacobsen LF577 seven unit fairway mower, the Jacobsen HR700 wide area rotary mower and the Jacobsen Truckster, the biggest heavy duty utility vehicle in its class.
David presenting the Jacobsen sponsored Edwin Budding Award to Stephen Tucker of IGCEMA
10 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
... and ‘playing around’ with machines on the Jacobsen stand
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