First, heartiest congratulations to Pat Smith on his appointment to take over from Andrew Watson at CNH. Whilst not quite on the level of a senior Minister crossing the floor, or Liverpool once again raiding Southampton’s squad, the announcement is a huge endorsement on the level of professionalism that now pervades the UK dealer network.
I am obviously not privy to the process nor circumstances that led to Pat’s new appointment, but it also reflects extremely well on the way that many dealers, and in this case T H White, nurture, encourage and train their staff in managerial expertise. No longer are dealers mere ‘order-takers’.
I think it also reflects the ongoing shift in relationship between manufacturer and dealer. Rarely now ‘them and us’, but partners in an ongoing crusade to provide the best possible service (in all its meanings) to customers. I like to believe that today, manufacturers understand dealers mentality much better than in the past - and vice-versa.
Of course, there are still fundamental differences. Shareholder pressures often influence the actions of multi-national suppliers (sometimes to the detriment of dealers), whilst dealers are still largely family units, their ‘shareholder-base’ very much closer to home, their priorities vastly different.
There have been many instances in the past of manufacturer staff joining a dealer and learning at first hand what it is like at the ‘sharp-end’, and likewise dealers going in the other direction having to adapt to very different set of priorities. Some have been highly successful, others less so.
I cannot recall however an instance of a dealer with 30 years under his belt in a senior role, taking up a top job with an major international company, which makes Pat Smith’s appointment so unusual, remarkable and satisfying.
There will be testing times ahead for him given his long allegiance with one of CNH’s longest standing dealers. His relationship with other CNH dealers will be interesting - and I cannot wait for the reactions when T H White are once again in the running for CNH Dealer of the Year!
But that's for the future, for the moment let's rejoice in the fact that one of the industry's largest corporations have raided their dealer network to find the expertise they required. Hats off to Pat, to T H White and to the dealer family as a whole.