Continuous innovation brought sales at Spartan Motors, Inc. to $681.9 million in 2007, a year when other manufacturers were losing money.
At the annual CEO Forum hosted by the Michigan Manufacturing Association (MMA), Spartan Motors’ CEO John Sztykiel told a captivated crowd that innovation has allowed his company to continue increasing sales. Spartan Motors’ 1997 sales stood at $178.6 million compared to $681.9million in 2007.
In 1993, Spartan Motors saw its RV sales grow by 225 percent, from $50 million to $165 million, thanks to the development of a rear diesel engine.
Whenmilitary contracts started vamping up in 2005, Spartan Motors got into the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) business. Expanding into military development kept Spartan Motors afloat while other manufacturers fell behind.
“We did not go out and have a defined business plan for the military business; it came to us,” Sztykiel says. He suggests that companies can innovate by reacting to markets, such as the military market, or by creating markets. Either can be enormously successful.
SpartanMotors recently created a market in rescue vehicles by creating anambulance/fire truck combination. Roughly 80 percent of emergency calls require an ambulance, yet an ambulance and fire truck typically respond. So, Spartan Motors created a roof-top ambulance extension that can put out high-reaching fires.
A video camera scouts out the fire so a person doesn’t have to be on point to physically put out the fire, saving money and reducing liability.
Sztykiel says his company will continue with its innovations, a move that will likely impress investors.
“We really have our best days ahead of us,” Sztykiel says.
Source: Joshua Lord, MMA
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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