“How would you like to come and make a difference?” That was the question Dave Birkhauser asked Ingo Schiller in 2007, when Manitowoc started restructuring its sales management prior to Birkhauser’s retirement in 2010.
Schiller was working for rival titan Liebherr, which appeared engrained in his life tapestry. Schiller is the son of Heinz Schiller, founder of the original US distributor of Liebherr cranes, Schiller International. He got his start in the crane industry as a mechanic, working wrenches on ship cranes. “Then I became a factory engineer, before moving to Schiller in a full-times sales capacity.” While on board at the distributorship he established a formal customer service department.
In 2003, Schiller International was sold to parent company Liebherr Ehingen. At this point, Heinz Schiller retired, but the younger Schiller stayed on as executive vice president, sales, of the newly-formed Liebherr Cranes, Inc. until January 2008 when he joined Manitowoc as vice president of sales and marketing for mobile hydraulic cranes in North America.
“I still have a lot of respect and admiration for the Liebherr family and I always enjoy catching up with them at trade shows. I enjoyed my time working with them, and my family’s relationship with them through two generations. But the job at Manitowoc allowed me to use all of the skills and experience I had acquired in my career up to that point. My new role represents the same challenges and opportunities so it was a natural progression for me.”
Schiller enjoyed the strategic nature of his new position. “The industry is about more than sales. At Manitowoc I was able to focus on sales and marketing with elements of forecasting, market development, product development and sales support for industrial cranes, rough terrains, truck cranes and all terrains.”
In 2009, Manitowoc extended Schiller’s responsibilities to include Latin America, but he is now focused exclusively on North America.
Some may say that the North American market may have less opportunity than that of regions further south in the continent, but Schiller won’t accept that.
“Yes, the North and South American markets are very different: in Latin America we sometimes deal directly with end users through our own staff; it’s more of a blended approach.
“In North America, we mostly deal with distributors—we have 19 major dealers, who provide our large cranes and, say, 100 smaller dealers who supply our boom trucks—which know their territories. They respond to the needs of the end users.
“Typically, we coordinate our contact with end users through dealers but there are end users in the factory on a daily basis. Some come in once a year, others more often, depending on where they are based. We are their eyes and ears on the factory floor.”
Given the massive downturn we’ve seen in the industry in recent years, Birkhauser may be happy that he left the industry when he did. After all, Manitowoc’s crane segment earnings from continuing operations fell from $555.6m for the full year 2008 to $145m in 2009. Net sales from cranes fell from $3.9bn to $2.3bn.
But Schiller is optimistic that Manitowoc will weather the challenge and come out ahead in the end.
“Manitowoc wrote the playbook for the downturn before the downturn happened, and we wrote the playbook for the upturn just after.
“We chose to act aggressively and early so we didn’t have surplus equipment and now we’re noting an upturn in business and we’re ready to seize that opportunity; we’re already hiring welders and assembly workers.”
While Schiller’s new role is concise in its geographical focus, it incorporates all aspects of sales for Manitowoc’s four crane brands— Manitowoc crawler cranes, Grove mobile cranes, National Crane boom trucks and Potain tower cranes.
“I think it works well to be focused on a specific geography but also with a range of products,” he says.
Despite market conditions, Schiller is excited about taking on the responsibilities of his new role.
“When I joined the company it was because it presented an opportunity to make a long-term difference to the crane industry,” says Schiller. “I am firmly committed to that goal.”
