Doosan Bobcat CEO: “We can double sales again”

Scott Park, CEO of Doosan Bobcat says the company are always looking for the right acquisition. Image: Doosan Bobcat

This is not as outlandish as it first appears, as Park is talking about different aspects of technology being stitched together by OEMs until, at some point in the future, there could be a ‘magic carpet’ that holds different technology options – such as automation, voice control and telematics – in one place.

“Imagine that our industry is quilting, is patching together different technology capabilities. In the past it was just about having one carpet, and that was just that one piece of hardware. Now we’re quilting in different capabilities and technologies as we stitch that together to create that ecosystem,” says Park during an interview in the US.

Part of what the CEO – who seemingly has a never-ending supply of energy – is talking about is the shift from customers just being interested in the ‘iron’, in the capabilities of an excavator, to the conversation now increasingly focusing on the technology offerings of the OEM that makes that equipment.

It’s only words

One of the key parts of the quilt for Doosan Bobcat is Jobsite Companion, an AI-powered, voice-controlled system for compact loaders that manages over 50 functions, such as attachment settings, lights, and machine diagnostics. This will be commercially available on Bobcat Pro compact loaders in the US this summer.

“Why would you want to move all the power settings and the movements when you can just, while you’re operating, say, ‘Hey, I’m going to use an auger, set up an auger setting.’ And if the sun goes down, why would you want to take your hands off the controls and then hit the lights? I’m like, ‘Hey, turn on the lights’.

The company’s Jobsite Companion will be launched later this year. Image: Doosan Bobcat

“You can imagine everything is starting to come together and all of that is all going to be connected with telematics. With the cloud connection and building around that ecosystem where now we have the ability to, through the air, support the customer and help them be more effective.”

A degree of autonomy is key in this, and Park is bullish on the potential of semi-autonomous functions to help address the industry’s skills shortage and boost its productivity. The demand for construction work is there, with the CEO highlighting home building and data centres as being two key sectors where there is more demand than the industry can currently digest.

Regarding the technology quilt, the magic carpet, he says with a smile, “It’ll never be finished. That’s the beauty of it. It’ll never be finished because we’re going to be developing and growing each piece of that quilt, but with a vision and direction in mind.

“There are certain pieces that we don’t know yet, so I don’t have an idea what that piece of the quilt looks like. Then there are other pieces that we know exactly what we want to do for the next five years. We’re going to find more uses, more purposes, more needs.”

The acquisitions dance

One of the recent big news stories in the industry was Doosan Bobcat’s proposed purchase of Wacker Neuson, the German-based manufacturer of compact construction equipment, which fell through. Talking about what happened, Park says, “I think it’s pretty obvious why we would want to do something like that. Scale matters and we sell pieces of iron and, on that iron, we sell attachments. In order to be successful as a software tool carrier in the future, we need to make sure that we have as much population, as much portfolio out there.

“That’s a pretty obvious reason why we want to expand our portfolio and get a greater scale. Wacker Neuson was quite an attractive target for us, and we went through some very deep discussions. I can’t give you the specifics but, at the end of the day, we decided that this wasn’t the right step for us at this point. But we still continue to move forward in looking for M&A [merger and acquisition] opportunities in different parts of the spaces that we play in. Because I still believe that M&A is part of our strategy.”

It is no surprise to hear Park say this, as in the last couple of years the company has purchased a ground maintenance equipment company and a forklift business. What is slightly more surprising is what sectors these acquisitions could be in.

“Wacker, that’s a traditional space; that’s a geographic play and some portfolio play. But we could be looking at a technology play. It could be around AI or some other capabilities that we would like to build into our portfolio. We could be looking at a distribution play. So, how do we expand our distribution, our capabilities through additional networks throughout the world? We could be looking at a vertical integration play like we did with Mottrol where we brought some hydraulic component capabilities in-house.

“We look at the whole spectrum and we have different targets on where we want to be depending on what piece we’re looking at. It is quite a complex question, but we are looking at all those spaces simultaneously. Because target opportunities, they come up when they come up.”

Doosan Bobcat growth targets

The OEM has grown its sales considerably in the last few years, and Park has ambitious plans for the future. Image: Doosan Bobcat

Acquisitions can play a key role in helping a company to grow. Park estimates that the purchases they have made in the last couple of years have contributed billions of dollars to the business. When it comes to expanding, Park is not done yet – not by a long way. Under his stewardship, the company has gone from revenue of approximately US$2 billion to US$6 billion. However, according to the CEO, this is just the beginning.

“I think we can grow, I think we can double again within the next five years. The composition of that growth is going to vary; there’ll be organic growth, there’ll be integrated growth and there’ll be new businesses, such as on the subscription and software side.

“Now, obviously, going from two to six billion is a bit easier than going from six to 12 billion. But I really do believe we can get there. I’m excited to get there, but we’re only going to do it in the right way.

“Scale and growth is not about growth only, it is not about getting more revenues. It is about ensuring that we have the critical mass and the capabilities and the population to enable a greater value proposition for the customer. As long as we can do that, we’ll continue.”

As the conversation drifts from magic carpets to machines, it is clear that Park’s vision is less about any single breakthrough and more about how everything fits together. The individual pieces – automation, software, electrification – already exist in various forms. The challenge, and the opportunity, lies in stitching them into something coherent, scalable and useful on site.

The quilt, as he puts it, is far from finished, but that doesn’t matter – it is as much about the progress made on the journey as the final destination.