Scott Montgomery was recently appointed General Manager of Scott USA Bicycle and will lead the effort to bring Scott bicycles to the U.S. market from Europe.
He was most recently VP of Marketing for Cannondale.
Scott started his career at Cannondale working the phones and soon found himself founding and managing Cannondale Europe and Cannondale Japan.

BOSS: What first attracted you to the Bike Industry?

SM: When I was 9 years old a kid named Ralph Zauckmann and I realized that if we could fix bikes we could make a few dollars. So, there was this apartment on our block where the people who lived there weren’t using the garage. We hung up a sign that said “Bike Shop” and started our first business.

BOSS: How do you feel about leaving Cannondale, and now competing against the company you helped to build?

SM: I hope to see the company recover for the sake of the people who continue to have opportunities there. A lot of very good people left the company, but there are a lot of great people that stayed, and I am very happy for those who received promotions. Really I guess it’s just somebody else’s turn.

BOSS: What major milestones have you reached in your first few months?
 

SM: We are right on my time-line with the product launch. I’ve been interviewing and hiring sales people, and we should have a complete sales force by the end of June. At this point it’s really about getting into the key retailers. There are really about 5,000 bicycle retailers in the U.S., and about 1,000 key retailers. We want about 100 of that 1,000.

BOSS: What are the criteria for these key retailers?

 SM: First off, they need a strong balance sheet. The company needs to be financially sound. A close second is that they need experience selling high-end product, and store locations are, of course, important. Last we like to make sure they are selling other premium brands.

BOSS: Have you come across any big surprises yet?
 

SM: The biggest surprise so far has been the quality of the sales force we have attracted. I am flooded every day with people wanting to sell the SCOTT brand, and they are all super experienced sales people. Just look at Miles (Gaddy) who we just hired in New England, he’s been in the industry for 25 years.

BOSS: SCOTT USA deals heavily in the SnowSports Market. What have you learned from this end of the business since you joined the company?

SM: Mainly the ski side of the company has helped me out by introducing me to new retailers. We looked at the existing SCOTT customer based and tried to determine where we could find some synergies. I do want to emphasize that we are not going back to the distribution model we had in the 80’s, and SCOTT will not be a predominantly ski-based bike supplier.

BOSS: Are there any lessons the two industries can learn from each other?

SM: You know if there is one regret I have it’s that the bike industry did not team up and build an organization as strong as SIA. We have some very good organizations in the NBDA, Bikes Belong, and America Bikes, but it’s not what the ski industry has.

BOSS: Other publications have said that the U.S. market is already over-crowded with bike manufacturers, how are you differentiating SCOTT USA from what is already out there?

SM: First of all, while there are quite a few brands in the U.S. market, I would take issue with the assumption that it is over-crowded. In the U.S. there are 66 bike brands; in Europe there are 144. So, while there is a lot of competition, there is no where near as much as in Europe.

The Bike industry is very interesting at the moment. Throughout the 90’s and into this decade, there was a major move by the dominant players in our industry to consolidate into three or four major players. Now, however, retailers are expanding their brand selection.

If you are just a one or two brand store, you lose some of the unique aspect that makes an independent bike shop special. And let’s face it, Americans are not that brand loyal. If you buy one brand, two or three years later you are not that likely to go back and but the same bike again. So, retailers are expanding to carry four, five, even six or seven major brands.

BOSS: There’s quite a bit of difference between the EU and the U.S. when it comes to bicycles, especially full suspension MTBs. Do you see this as an issue or an opportunity for SCOTT?

SM: In the short term I see this as an opportunity. At the moment a lot of the fashions and trends in the bike industry are coming out of Europe, especially with this big road phenomenon, and what I like to call the Lance effect. He has single handedly turned road biking from a queer lycra-clad sissy sport into a hip, fashionable, healthy activity that is really good for you.

I think with SCOTT we can leverage the European heritage of the brand for both road and mountain bikes. Now can I become the biggest supplier in the U.S. that way? Probably not. But, can I grow the brand for the next few years like this? Absolutely!

BOSS: Will there be any U.S. specific product or will product design remain in Europe?

SM: I’m sure a time will come when someone in the sales force will tell me, ‘you know if you put this saddle on this bike, I could sell 500 more bicycles,’ or ‘if you swap these tires out I can sell 200 more…’ and obviously we’ll have to evaluate that as it happens.

For the first two years we won’t have any American stand-alone product. As we get larger and get into more retailers, it will become necessary to put our stamp on the design. Right now, since it’s our first year the forecast error is more significant, so we will rely on the existing European product. That way if I under forecast, and we sell 1,000 CR1’s instead of 500, we can still get the product and provide better service to the retailers.

BOSS: Long term, what’s the potential size of the SCOTT USA bike business?
 

SM: One of the things I enjoy about being a part of a private organization is not being forced to share our targets and goals, but I will tell you this. What most major bike companies have done is 40% in the U.S., 40% in Europe, and 20% in Asia and South America. I think, long term, that is where SCOTT needs to be.

BOSS: What was your first bike?

SM: A Schwinn Sting-Ray that we bought at Western Auto.