This week I have travelled with the good people of Stihl GB to visit the company's facilities in Wil, Switzerland and Waiblingen, Germany.
Myself and other press people were lucky enough to be shown around both chain and saw production factories, and we were granted a rare glimpse into the high-tech Research and Development facility in Waiblingen.
We were also privileged to be granted an audience with the grandson of founder Andreas Stihl, the current chairman of the STIHL Group's advisory and supervisory boards, Dr Nikolas Stihl.
As a particular focus of the visit involved the introduction of a new range of cordless machinery I took the opportunity to ask Dr Stihl what he would say to the traditional servicing dealer, who with the influx of all this new battery-powered machinery, may be nervous of the impact this will have on their service departments?
Dr Stihl gave a very open and considered answer saying, "First of all, it may sound mean but they will simply have to deal with it because at the end of the day the customer decides what they want to buy.
"What we can do is offer products covering the whole range - from consumer to professional. And we sell these products dealer-exclusive. This part of the business will not change.
"On the one hand since cordless products are a little less in need of service, their service levels will probably change a little bit. However on the other hand over the course of the next 10-15 years we do not expect the level of our petrol products in dealerships to go down very much.
"There are customers who still really want to have petrol powered products. And indeed there are areas still where you will not be able to generate enough power without using fuel.
"So in my opinion it's really an additional business. It will, if done right, bring additional customers into their shops. They may have to change their appearance a little bit, but we are in the process of doing that anyway.
"The business environment is changing. It changed all the time in the last 90 years and I think it will keep doing so in the future as well."
Dr Stihl went on to emphasise most clearly several times that there is no intention whatsoever to sell through the mainstream retail chains. They are utterly committed to the independent, servicing dealer network.
He just stressed this idea that dealers will have to accept this change in the market - perhaps giving further attention to internet sales, potentially along the 'click and collect' model.
As we know, one of the core strengths of the independent dealer is the ability to adapt to current conditions quickly - hopefully this gradual change in powered equipment technology will be no different.
