Cannondale closes their US office and merges the sales into one office

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in the exact center of the Netherlands
sadly the time has arrived that the CT office is going to shutdown for Cannondale. All CSG activities will be transfered (or are allready) to Woudenberg and Freiburg to the PON.bike surroundings. Just the sales part will be merged with the other sales reps in the USA.

The last few years C'dale earned its money with the e-bikes build in Europe for the EU market. the Road/MTB part was not driving the company anymore. So business wise this might be a logic evolution, just sad to see that CSG is absorbed into the big PON.bike structure. Let's see what the future has to bring for the soul of this brand.

Also, this means roughly 150 people lose their jobs locally, some will transfer back to the Netherlands.
 
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I saw that. This probably means that US dealer support will be either sent overseas, or trimmed down to minimal stateside. Ugh.
 
they'll centralize the sales activities under the central Santa Cruz team, also the outside sales reps will promote C'dale... And what will happen to the Headshock service in the US... I do not think they'll be able to send those to Europe for service (if Wim is still there... since the new factory has been shutdown in the NL).

this marks the end of an era... I heard the news from some former co-workers. Nice to have the global head office near by from home, used to be a 15 to 20 minute bike-ride into the office.
 
I'm thinking more about warranty service, which we do a good bit of, as well as Cannondale/Bosch stuff. The US team was very good for both.

There are those that would say that we should go all in with X-Lab and dump Cannondale. If we do that, then some other shop near us will take them. It's not as simple as it looks on the surface.

Also, Santa Cruz is sold by our closest competitor.
 
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I just saw a video that was highly informative but packed with advertisements. China's $65 Bikes Just Destroyed Trek's $6 Billion Empire. The same is happening with the PON Group. These factories were making bikes to specifications for 30-years and learned all the techniques and built the factory infrastructure and had the skilled workers. But with the post pandemic inventory glut the major brand stickers on bikes stopped placing orders. Factory loyalty to those sticker brands became a non-issue at that point. Now they are selling bikes under their own names, cutting out the layers in between. This story happened with Schwinn back in the 1980's when Giant made all of their bikes. Then Giant started selling better bikes under their own name causing Schwinn to implode and now only to be a licenced sticker on some big box bottom tier bikes. The same pressure is now on brands such as Specialized. Imagine Specialized being just a sticker on a single speed kids low-end bike in Target or Walmart? They do not own the means of production and are now starting to wake to that fact a little too late.
 
The PON Holdings Group contracts out all of their frame production to factories in Asia making them vulnerable. The Chinese are well schooled in Marxist economics regarding ownership of the means of production and the leverage that gives.
 
When Trek started they were making their own frames. Then it became more profitable to farm out production, but in doing so and becoming dependent they lost control. It is weird when a customer walks into a retail bike shop and sees four or five brands to shop between, plus accessories, that they are all owned by the same company: Trek, Bontrager, Electra, and Diamont or Cannondale, Santa Cruz, Gazelle, Cervelo, and GT.
 
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No, it is another "Dutch disease". Van Moof (at least a private company), Accell and then PON, both Dutch conglomerates that tried to swallow more than they could eat. I had a doubtful pleasure to work with a Dutch company in another industry years ago and found I could work with many nations but not with this one.
 
Just because one corporate overlord makes the frames does not mean they're the same product, ride the same, same fit/finish, etc.

From my interactions with PON I'd say their dealer and rider support has been quite good.
 
Trek started charging their customers a tariff sir charge while filing a lawsuit to get back the tariff money from the Feds. They won, getting the money back, and now must pay back their customers who paid the fee. That suit is still pending. X-Labs has 170 US dealers currently and can afford to cut-out the overhead of the price of a major brand sticker, pocketing more than they would just producing bikes for other brands while giving a better value to shoppers.
 
Stefan Mikes said:
Let us is how this affects Cannondale in North America.
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Time will tell. Cannondale is our most prominent full line manufacturer. Trek and Specialized are down the street.

Even the high end of the top manufacturer's carbon frames are made in Taiwan. They have been making very high quality frames for decades. At the same time, they have been copying designs and selling "open mold" frames for decades, even though the IP was stolen. This is the devil you deal with.

Every Pinarello frame on the market except the Dogma's (F, X, GR) are made in Taiwan. The Dogma frames are made in Italy. There is a reason that there are so many counterfeit Pinarello frames on the market, and why Pinarello begs you to register your bike as soon as you can. Keeping the top models away from Taiwan keeps the design 100% in house.
 
Greater product range
More cash for investment
Less points of contact for sales and service
Greater abililty to adjust pricing
 
Fewer contacts for sales and service is another way to say it's more streamlined for the dealer in terms of contacts. Usually things get done more quickly, or they can anyways.

Investment =/= wasteful spending

Not sure about the Excel comment and product range.

I've got a couple Italian Pinarellos and one Taiwan and have sold both styles. There's a difference, so some it's enough to justify the price. Others not so much.
 
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