David
P. Carlisle Biography
Overview
I have been professionally involved in
the motor vehicle industry since 1983 and am presently
Chairman of the Board, Carlisle & Company,
Inc., a privately held consulting firm in Concord,
Massachusetts founded in 1993. We are devoted
exclusively to research in and consulting to the
motor vehicle industry. This includes enterprise
strategy, program development, service parts metrics,
best practices, and performance/operational benchmarking.
Vehicle OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)
I have worked with (mostly in the area of service
parts) include: AM General (Hummer), BMW, Ferrari,
Fiat Europe, Ford, Ford Canada, Ford Europe, General
Motors, GM Canada, GM Europe, Gulf States Toyota,
Harley-Davidson, Honda, Hyundai, Isuzu, Maserati,
Mazda (U.S. and Europe), Mid-Atlantic Toyota,
Mitsubishi, DaimlerChrysler (U.S., Canada, Europe),
Nissan, Nissan Canada, Peugeot-Citroen (Europe),
Renault (Europe), Saab (U.S. and Europe), Saturn,
Southeast Toyota, Subaru of America, Subaru of
New England, Toyota (U.S. and Europe), Volkswagen
Audi (U.S. and Europe), Volvo (U.S. and Europe),
AGCO, Case, New Holland, Caterpillar (U.S. and
Europe), Komatsu, and Volvo Construction.
Before
forming Carlisle & Co. Inc., I was a Vice President
with Charles River Associates, a Partner at Temple,
Barker & Sloane, Inc. (now called Mercer Management
Consulting), and a Director in Colgate-Palmolive
Company's information systems department.
I
received a BA from the State University of New
York at Oswego, and hold an MS in Operations Research
and Statistics and an MS in Urban and Environmental
Planning from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Throughout
my consulting career, I have worked globally (North
America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia)
with nearly every major motor vehicle OEM. I have
led engagements focused on such issues as product
development, parts pricing, network design, supply
chain optimization, marketing strategies, and
brand introduction, to name a few. I have presented
at joint OEM/UAW conferences, served on industry
advisory councils, and facilitated dozens of industry
roundtables.
My
Philosophy & Values — Forming Carlisle & Company
The "roots" of the firm go all the way
back to late 1950's while riding in a 1955 Chevy
Bel Air (red and white) station wagon on the way
to Greensburg, Pennsylvania. I learned to rapidly
identify makes and models from the back seat while
driving down the New York State Thruway and Pennsylvania
Turnpike. Cars, trucks, tractors, and bulldozers
have been very cool, to me, for the past 45 years.
I got my chance to start working in the industry
about 20 years ago.
What's
nice about the motor vehicle industry is that
it is one of the three cool industries, it accounts
for about 10% of the US GDP, and, it is a very
big extended family - it seems that, if you work
at it, you can get to know just about everybody
in it. The "official" beginning of Carlisle
& Company starts in 1993 when I formed the
predecessor firm to Carlisle & Company. At
the core of our firm has always been a fanatical
devotion to extreme knowledge of our industry.
We don't aspire to be brilliantly conversational;
we strive for something way beyond that.
Thinking
of a firm's history is important, because it allows
you to detect, and manage, trend lines. Our trend
line has been to become more exclusive and focused,
more private, and more fanatical in our acquisition
of knowledge and, hopefully, wisdom. To tell the
truth, Bill Gates at Microsoft - the second cool
industry (I consider Microsoft to be an industry)
- has been inspirational to us throughout our
history. Bill aways worries about being second
best. Well, so do we. Second best is a nightmare
that propels us to constantly redouble our appetite
for knowledge and application.
The
third cool industry is non-profit. Gen X may have
created the Internet bubble that so loudly popped,
but it also created individuals of incredible
intelligence, honesty, and integrity. Folks who
could teach Boomers like me something. Over the
last four years Dan Kalafatas and Ann Budner created
and expanded our non-profit practice. Throughout
its history our company has been very lucky and
fortunate. Some say that you make your own luck
- I do know we really worked hard for it. But,
I profoundly believe that all this luck and fortune
has merely given us the means and opportunity
to give something back to this world. We do that
with our devotion to non-profit work.
Carlisle
& Company Overview
Carlisle & Company, Inc. is a private firm
singularly devoted to the motor vehicle industry.
We also have a Non-Profit Consulting practice,
which specializes in outcomes measurement projects
for non-profit entities.
As
industry specialists, we bring with us a deep
understanding of the issues motor-vehicle companies
face; we possess the experience to design and
implement practical solutions. That includes:
- Supply
chain strategies at the largest manufacturers
and suppliers
- Implementation
of lean concepts for measurable results
- Sales
and marketing, pricing and brand strategies
- Shareholder
value and turnaround engagements
- Corporate
and retail automotive training
- Product
development sales
- Growth
and geographic expansion
All
of our industry work is governed by strict confidentiality
agreements, which serve to severely limit distribution
and prevent unauthorized use. We generally do
not solicit work, participate in speaking engagements
or publish work outside the motor-vehicle industry.
We genrally do not speak with the media and only
rarely do we provide expert opinions for the general
public.
Culture
of Carlisle & Company
Our culture is the net result of our history and
our devotion to clients - it encompasses eight
core values.
Subject
Matter Mastery: Clients expect us to
be masters of the motor vehicle and service-parts
industries and, even more specifically, the functional
areas of their interest. Content always trumps
process. We create, collect, interpret, and hold
much of the source material for the industry.
It is inexcusable for anyone in our firm to not
steadily acquire mastery. Lack of mastery equals
lack of effort.
Reliability:
Clients expect us to be reliable. We do what we
say we will do; we do what the client expects
of an expert; and we do it when they expect it
to be done. They expect quality, and so do we,
and our expectations of quality are, and must
be, uniformly higher than our clients' expectations.
Trust:
Clients trust us to be right. They trust us with
their secrets. Every action we take is somehow
seen through the lens of trust.
Creativity: Clients want creative solutions. They
depend on us to look at everything and suggest
ideas and concepts they never would have developed
alone. We are unique in our ability to leverage
our subject-matter mastery, to design creative
solutions that look across the value chain.
Solutions:
Clients want more than information and benchmarks;
ultimately, they want solutions. Behind even a
simple benchmarking request lurks a problem that
needs to be solved. Clients expect us to go beyond
simply brokering information to see their real
issues and design solutions.
Fun:
Work should be fun, not drudgery. That goes for
clients and teammates. Whining, bringing excess
baggage, complaining, and deriding are the antithesis
of fun, and aren't tolerated in our environment.
To
Listen: Clients expect us to "truly"
listen. Sometimes this is difficult, because we
need to use many senses: our head and logic, our
emotion and heart, our instincts, our sense of
right and wrong, our understanding of the past
and our "mastery" of our experience."
To effectively listen, we must take ourselves
-- our needs and fears - out of the equation.
We listen with our ears and our eyes. Listening
is an art that is very difficult to master.
Respect:
Clients deserve to be respected, and need to respect
us. Respecting clients reflects good manners -
something we hopefully learned at home. Gaining
respect is more complex. Respect extends to all
aspects of our client relationships: respect for
their time - realizing that the default one-hour
meeting is often too long; respect for their budgets
- knowing when we are not adding value and it
is time to leave; and respect for their goals
- understanding that the intellectually right
answer may not always meet their objectives.
David
Carlisle's Education
- Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, M.S., operations research
and statistics
- Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, M.S., urban and environmental
planning
- State
University of New York at Oswego, B.A.
David
Carlisle's Professional Experience
- Chairman
of the Board, Carlisle & Company, Inc., present
- Vice
President and member of Board of Directors,
Charles River Associates, 1991-1993
- Principal,
Temple, Barker & Sloane, Inc., 1983-1991
- Associate
Director, Colgate-Palmolive Company, 1977-1983
Relevant
Areas Of David Carlisle's Experience
The type of work that I have done includes the
following — note that in most instances the work
is still highly confidential (we generally sign
annual non-disclosure agreements with specific
companies) and I am unable to link the specific
client to the type of work.
Market
Entry Planning — I have worked with several
companies to develop their ‘blueprints'
for doing business in the U.S. market — these
are called market entry plans. These plans are
comprehensive and represent a "how to" manual
for conducting manufacturing/distribution operations
in the United States. Elements of the plan typically
include product positioning, sales and marketing
strategy, pricing strategy and sales, forecasts,
sales process, dealer network definition and management,
logistics and vehicle distribution, service, parts,
in-house vs. third-party assessment, organizational
structure, executive office administration, launch
economics, project management and implementation
planning, product regulatory issues, and company
regulatory issues. I have even been involved in
market entry planning for various marques that
did not enter the U.S. market after they reached
various "no-go" checkpoints in the launch evaluation
process. As a part of these efforts I have visited
most of the U.S. ports of entry for bringing in
motor vehicles.
Product
and Division Launch Planning — I have
assisted motor vehicle companies in launching
new products (for example, a new sedan) or new
divisions (for example, a new luxury car division).
Launching a new division can require a level of
effort similar to a complete market entry plan,
whereas launching a new product might only require
the development of a business plan and implementation
work plan.
North
American Service Parts Conference (NASPC) and
European Aftermarket Conference (EAC)
— I have accumulated through my company (Carlisle
& Company, Inc.) 12 years of industry comparative
metrics and fully documented best practices (and
some worst practices) for over 20 companies in
N.A., encompassing nearly 150 facilities, with
over 100 metrics on each facility, and another
100+ metrics at the "corporate" level. Our database
ranges from company-wide supply chain cost-of-sales,
to square feet of dock space at specific warehouses.
We also have similar data and detail for all the
major European OEs. We leverage our extensive
industry contacts to provide highly focused, "content
rich", benchmarking services, employing the APQC
Benchmarking Code of Conduct. The idea is to develop
an extremely clear understanding of all aspects
of the service parts business. How do different
companies approach different business problems?
What are the results in clearly comparable numbers?
What are the IT, process, staffing, and organizational
implications? Recent service parts benchmarking
studies include: salaried staff — numbers and
structure, vintage-car parts retention policies,
parts pricing notification processes, terms and
conditions, weekend order processing, returns
policies, recall parts policies, inventory management
policies, glass fulfillment, and accessories organization/strategies/practices.
Marketing
— I have directed work focused on understanding
market share and the impact of sales and marketing
strategies. As a consequence of this work, I have
reviewed dealer and customer-based market research
that involved thousands of surveys to quantify
the factors contributing to customer satisfaction
and purchase behavior.
Global
Software Development Advisory Council
— I have worked with one of the largest software
manufacturers in the world, on a highly select
customer advisory council. The mission of this
advisory council is to assess future trends, identify
best practices, and guide the development of future
service parts software solutions. Our client has
formed several advisory councils in the past around
other industries — typically third parties and
consultants are not allowed into these forums.
Brand
Equity
— I have been involved in developing brand equity
strategies for several OEMs. For one OEM, I led
the internal brand equity task force that developed
the brand product positioning strategies that
have been in place for the past 5 years. For another
OEM, I was part of a strategy team that refocused
an ailing division based on close attention to
a future vision of product brand equity. For others,
I have helped reshape their brand equity strategies
to become the seed from which other distribution,
logistics, and pricing strategies are born.
OEM
Focus Groups & Roundtables — I have facilitated
dozens of focus groups, within OEMs and across
OEMs, that brought together hundreds, if not thousands,
of OEM employees to discuss matters of attitude,
policy, and procedure.
Supplier
Focus Groups — I have facilitated supplier
focus groups that brought together numerous OE
suppliers to discuss a broad array of issues.
Pricing
— For the past decade, I have been intimately
involved in developing strategies and enabling
systems/processes for OEMs in parts and accessory
pricing, and vehicle pricing. I led the efforts
to develop these processes and strategies for
one of the largest global OEMs. This OEM still
has in place much the same processes we put in
place in the mid-1990s, and refined in 2001.
Distribution
Benchmarking — I have been involved in
several vehicle distribution benchmarking efforts
that encompassed global operations in North America,
South America, Asia Pacific, and Europe. Almost
all of my clients have either sponsored a benchmarking
project or participated in one.
Production
Logistics Strategy — I have worked in
various projects that developed distribution strategies
for the U.S. These strategies encompassed analysis
of port-of-entry, port processing, rail distribution,
and truck transportation of vehicles to dealers.
Service
Parts Distribution Strategy — I have
worked with a number of OEM service parts divisions
in determining/optimizing their supply chain networks.
This includes modeling and quantifying various
product flows, warehouse quantities, locations,
and sizes, and inventory management philosophies.
A number of my clients have significantly modified
their logistics networks based upon our recommendations.
Transfer
Price Analysis — I performed an analysis
for one of the leading OEMs to address its current
transfer price arrangement between the U.S. and
Canada in terms of selling parts back and forth
between the U.S. and Canadian Service Parts Divisions.
This study considered the services conducted by
each division on behalf of the other. By investigating
financial returns for comparable public companies
performing similar services, we determined a fair
"arms-length" transfer price mechanism to support
sales between the two divisions.
Acquisition
Analysis — I performed an acquisition
analysis focused on an East Coast port processor
that took into account all major facets of the
port processor's processing operations as well
as its geographic position for future sales growth.
Management/Business
Auditing — I have provided management
and business auditing services for nearly two
decades. In general terms, the purpose of these
audits has been to determine if company performance
outcomes and management practices are within acceptable
industry norms.
Sales
Strategies and Visioning — I have been
involved with a key Asian account for the past
11 years in preparing annual business plan strategies,
visions, and initiative updates. These business
strategies are then turned into annual Sales Force
training curricula. As a consequence of these
activities, I have been continually involved in
activities that pertain to vehicle ordering, allocation,
forecasting, wholesaling, and distribution.
"Project
Genesis" Future of the Retail Environment
— In the midst of the trend towards dealer consolidation
and the forming of public entities, I led a 2-year
effort focused on understanding where the U.S.
retail environment was heading. This considered
key trends in consolidation, taking retail groups
public, wholesaling, retailing, order-to-delivery,
and the use of the Internet by end-customers.
Ordering
& Allocation Benchmarking — Several times
during my career, I have been involved in benchmarking
current practices in OEM vehicle forecasting,
ordering, and allocation.
Vehicle
Leasing Strategies — I have been involved
in developing vehicle leasing strategies for OEMs;
I have also assisted a large leasing company in
refining its vehicle leasing portfolio.
Dealer
Attitudes and Satisfaction — I have been
involved with Carlisle & Company's product development
and launch of various satisfaction survues here
and in Eueope. These annual surveys measure U.S.
dealer satisfaction along more than 200 areas
of interest, encompassing more than 8,000 dealers,
and representing approximately 15 different OEMs.
Service-Customer
Needs and Attitudes — I have directed
work that has involved surveying, as well as reviewing
market research, for dozens, to hundreds, to thousands
of OEM dealer customers. These surveys gauged
customer satisfaction and understanding along
a broad array of issues affecting them in the
dealer and aftermarket environment.
Customer
Retention Strategies — I have directed
work with various OEMs that focused on increasing
customer retention in their new car showroom and
dealer service shops. This work has included extensive
customer research, benchmarking, and analysis.
The output of this work includes strategy visioning,
gap analysis, cost/benefit analysis, and program
plans.
Sales
Growth Strategies — My work with various
clients has focused on increasing sales through
a variety of strategic levers, including terms
and conditions, pricing, operational effectiveness,
and policy changes. As is typical of all our strategy
work, we bring extensive customer research into
the customer-requirements phase of strategy development.
Dealer
Focus Groups — I have facilitated numerous
dealer focus groups that brought together hundreds
of dealers to discuss how their business works,
how they react to certain products or concepts,
what they think about their brand, what they think
about various policies, as well as myriad other
issues.
Customer
Focus Groups — I have facilitated and
managed customer focus groups that brought together
hundreds of customers to discuss what they think
about vehicle product and support issues.
|
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TOVC
[Quote]
Exchange
OTC
Shares
Outstanding
Approximately 29,000,000
52
Wk. Range
$1.25 - $9.98
2005
Shareholders' Mtg.
Reports
by the CEO, CFO and Chairman
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Code
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Financial Integrity
Program
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