01. Copperberg Podcast
Episode 09
Building from Scratch: Shaping Positec’s Spare Parts Management with Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker
In this episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters, Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker, Spare Parts Manager EMEA at Positec Germany, pulls back the curtain to share her journey of building Positec’s spare parts management in EMEA.
02. CONTENT
What does it take to lead spare parts operations across borders, time zones, and expectations?
From managing complex relationships across global headquarters and regional subsidiaries to overcoming communication barriers, Anastasia demonstrates why a successful spare parts leader needs both soft skills and strategic insight to deliver consistent, meaningful results.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
- Navigating the Unknown
Anastasia’s experience and insights from creating and refining Positec’s spare parts processes across EMEA, from inventory management to training dealers. - Communicating with Global Stakeholders
Overcoming language barriers, bridging gaps between stakeholders, and mastering the delicate art of balancing global and regional interests within an international service supply chain. - Expanding from DIY to Professional Markets
How Positec strategically transitioned into the professional B2B market, tackling heightened service expectations and inventory complexities along the way. - Empowering Dealers through Transparency
Why dealer relationships are central to Positec’s growth strategy, the pivotal role of their dealer portal, and practical insights into keeping dealer networks aligned, satisfied, and effective. - Future Opportunities
The importance of digital transformation, including AI-driven predictive services and dealer portals that streamline orders and repairs offering an exciting preview into industry trends and practical tips for adopting new technologies to stay ahead competitively.
Throughout the episode, Anastasia emphasizes how critical effective communication and trust-building are for spare parts professionals navigating international roles, providing practical takeaways for those looking to enhance their own roles.
03. Speakers
Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters is your go-to podcast for candid discussions with the industry’s top thinkers and innovators.
04. Listen now
Building from Scratch: Shaping Positec’s Spare Parts Management with Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker
05. Transcript
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (00:00)
Now I am mostly focusing on the communication topic, which is a challenge for me because I’m a supply chain professional. So I am that middleman. It’s an interesting position. And it’s interesting that I need to wear different hats the entire day. So when I talk to HQ, I represent the interests of Europe. And when I talk to Europe, I represent interest of HQ. So I need to have a balance between two of them.
Nina Roper Yearwood (00:27)
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters. I’m your host, Nina Roper Yearwood from Copperberg. Wherever you’re tuning in from, I hope you’re having a good day.
Joining us today is Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker, Spare Parts Manager for EMEA at Positec Germany. Positec is a global manufacturing company for robotic mowers, garden tools, and power tools. Headquartered in Suzhou, China, with over 4,000 employees worldwide. Their office in Germany, the EMEA Headquarter, has been in Cologne for over 10 years.
Nina Roper Yearwood (01:11)
Anastasia brings a rich perspective to her role, having lived in four countries – the United States of America, Russia, Norway, and Germany, where she now resides. Anastasia has been in her current role for over three years now, where she is responsible for building the structure of spare parts management from scratch.
I look forward to hearing more about what she does here and the challenges she encountered and as well as how she overcame this and more throughout this conversation. But prior to stepping into service supply chain management, Anastasia has also worked extensively in the standard supply chain of things, which gives her an even broader understanding of how things move behind the scenes. Hello Anastasia, welcome to the show!
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (02:06)
Hi Nina, I’m very happy to be here!
Nina Roper Yearwood (02:10)
Very happy to have you here as well. Wonderful! So, before we get into the details, can we just start with your journey? Could you walk us through your journey to Positec and what led you to your current role?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (02:25)
Yeah, my journey started, I think, a long time ago when I finished my degree in Russia and then I worked at university. So it was kind of like a start where I didn’t expect I would be right now. I mean, I actually always wanted to work at the University of International Relations, but then my career developed in a different way.
So I moved to Germany, I got a degree in Germany, then I moved to Norway, started working in logistics there. It was kind of like by accident, so I worked at a truck company there, the producer of trucks. And then I came back to Germany, looked for a new job. Also felt okay, I need do to something in supply chain. Got this job offer at Positec, stayed in supply chain, in a normal supply chain, classical one, for two years.
Then I heard that the Head of after sales was looking for someone to build a spare parts management in the EMEA region. I thought, okay, that would be interesting for me. That was a good challenge for me. And actually, I don’t think that I regret any minute of it that I made the decision to switch to the service supply chain, which is, I mean, we all know, service supply chain is a bit more complicated than the classical one.
Nina Roper Yearwood (03:44)
Well, very interesting journey you have there and that’s such a unique position, I think, and quite tricky, if I may add. So I mentioned a little bit about Positec and can you just tell us a little bit about Positec as well in your own words?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (04:00)
Yeah, Positec is a global company. We are Chinese producer of robotic motors and garden tools. We also do power tools. That was the first thing what we did. We are in the sector of DIY business. We are established there. And now we are getting into the professional range. So, professional range, it means that we want to sell our products to businesses like hotels, golf courses, some property companies who need to take care of their gardens.
We have competitors, obviously, like everybody else. The competitors are mostly European companies or American companies. So there are now some Chinese companies entering the market, but we are now competing on the level of European companies.
And yeah, I mean, in general, what I can say about Positec as a company, I see it as a very flexible company. I know there is kind of like a bad image of Chinese companies that, you know, they have the top-down approach. We do have that, obviously. There are some things which are coming from HQ, but HQ listens to us, so that’s a good thing that they listen to what regions are saying, what we need. But yeah, in general, I would say it’s not a typical Chinese company where, you know, somebody says, and we need to jump and do everything what somebody says to do. So I would say it’s a good mix. We’ve developed so much over the five years that I’ve been with Positec on this journey.
Nina Roper Yearwood (05:33)
So Positec is a Chinese company, its headquarters is in China. So, how is your European operations structured and what is your role within that?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (05:38)
I am responsible for the spare parts management in the entire Europe, Middle East and Africa. I’m located in Cologne and we are calling Cologne as HQ, email HQ for our subsidiaries. We have multiple subsidiaries across Europe, Middle East and Africa, we also have some there, but Middle East and Africa business is not that booming as compared to Europe.
The main focus is obviously Germany, because Cologne is located there, and then we have subsidiaries in the Nordics, in Sweden and Denmark. We also have the Eastern Europe in Poland and Poland is covering other countries as well there in Eastern Europe, and we also have the South of Europe, it’s France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Yes, we also have Switzerland now, just opened last year.
And yeah, what about the operations? I must say that we as HQ in Europe, we communicate to our subsidiaries what are our goals. And our goals are obviously based on what HQ is telling us, okay, this is our target. And we are just trying to make sure that the target what we have from HQ can actually be manageable on the regional level.
Nina Roper Yearwood (06:44)
So you’re working across different regions, which means dealing with different expectations, processes. So, what are some unique challenges that you can share with us of managing operations across such diverse regions?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (07:07)
Yeah, it’s definitely challenging, I must say that. And I remember when I once I attended the intercultural training course and I said, oh, well, I mean, here’s your profile, you’re Russian, and this is how you behave in this way. I’m like, well, it’s not that easy right now in the world because we are also international, right? So you live abroad, you lived abroad for a long time. I lived abroad for a long time. So there are already some kinks around it where you know you need to work it out to make sure that it’s not only this stereotypical Finstek. Italians are always late, or I do not know what stereotypes are actually there. Germans are always on time, right? So I would say there are difficulties and they are intercultural difficulties for sure because there is some baseline where you need to start from.
There are also difficulties about the level of knowledge other subsidiaries have about the service management. I didn’t think about it before, and now it just hit me when understood that maybe we just talked to the wrong person when we were trying to put some processes into place at subsidiary.
So I think the three things which are there is cultural difference, the level of knowledge of service management, and we all know service management is not the sexiest topic we have in management, right? So that’s why people are just like, okay, it’s there, and just somebody is dealing with that. We are not going to look into that. So I would say these countries, they do have different level of urgency and that’s the cultural thing and the knowledge dependent on if there is a high level of knowledge, then they obviously treat everything as it’s supposed to be treated in the urgent matter.
There is also one thing which I found very interesting. Trust. Trust is a massive topic and it just you really need to make to build this rapport where you represent yourself as a reliable person, as a person who is actually representing the interest of subsidiaries.
So this trust was a really, really big topic for us in last year. Because I had a new team I also came back from my maternity leave and obviously when you’re in the middle of the season and you need to work out how trust works is it’s a challenge and I would say the best thing was to have catch-up calls with them.
I couldn’t travel last year so we had to deal with the catch-up calls but I noticed already the difference – for example, years before I went to Spain just to talk to people and I noticed, and to Nordics, to two subsidies where I went quite a lot, and I noticed when I know people face to face, when I meet them face to face, when I spend with them one or two days, even one or two days, it helped so much. I didn’t have any issues with Spain or Nordic subsidiaries at all when we were in place in the new process for our professional range business.
So I would say if anyone is in my situation, just go to subsidiaries, spend 3-4 days with them, go to dinner with them as well. I mean, dinners really helped a lot. So it’s not only like you go to the office and talk to them. This conversation at a dinner table actually, I think, probably made the difference. So my plan is to go to France this year. Hopefully I will do that because in France we have lots of issues. They didn’t understand our process or didn’t want to follow them. But that was a trust issue. And I mean, I think that was kind of the topic which we are addressing right now also, actually.
And I think the first topic was always with the subsidiaries’ transparency. I mean, we don’t get transparency sometimes from HQ. And we want to give information to our subsidiaries, but we don’t have any. So that is also an exhausting topic, where we need to first connect with HQ – what can you give us? And after that, we can give information to subsidiaries and subsidiaries says, you know, if you are a customer and you have a supplier and supplier cannot give you any information, obviously, you’re frustrated because you need to give this information to the customers later.
So I think those three topics, this, the urgency, the understanding of urgency, the trust topic and transparency of the key ones and they’re still there. I mean, it’s not, it’s not going away. We need to keep up working on that.
Nina Roper Yearwood (11:48)
So you mentioned three key elements here, urgency, transparency, and trust. And you have to coordinate this. There’s so many moving parts essentially within your role. So how do you stay connected with the Chinese headquarters as well? And how does communication work with China?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (11:58)
I must say the communication is not always easy. I would say that I think it’s also an exception of positive that people speak very good English. I’m not a native speaker, but I still can see, you know, people speak very good English that we can communicate on the business level. That’s good. I think that was a very positive thing. And communication, but still. The meaning of words sometimes is getting lost between Chinese and European approach with the language. So I think that was very interesting.
When I joined after sales team, there was a COVID lockdown, so we didn’t travel to China. Now it’s kind of, you know, we are in this pattern that we don’t travel to China for now, but obviously we need to do it at some point. It’s urgently needed. We just have the weekly calls for the entire after sales team, we have that. But then I noticed that this after sales call is occupied with other topics and spare parts measurement is if after sales people try not to look at it, spare parts people just forget about it.
What helps me a lot is to set up calls and have even daily calls with my key people at HQ. So I built relations to them to make sure that we understand each other on the level that, I mean, we are not friends, but we respect each other. I respect them as experts in HQ, they respect us as experts in Europe. So those calls really helped out a lot, but yeah, the trip to China is definitely needed.
I would say that was the thing, but I mean, I would say that also I didn’t come from the zero. When I worked in logistics, I helped this after sales team in China a lot because nobody took over of spare parts because it was important and everybody was looking into finished goods. So I helped them a lot already before I joined this after sales team. So they knew me, they knew who I am. And I also had my colleague who was also Chinese in logistics and she was recommending me, I know unofficially she was kind of like, yes, I know this person, I think you can trust this person that she can do good job. So I will say this, that having somebody recommended you and you show your results that you actually can do the job. That helped a lot to work with China and make sure that they trust me more.
Nina Roper Yearwood (14:35)
Every step of your role here, I see that it’s always about building trust and breaking down any transparency barriers that exists. And so I want to ask, are there conflicts between subsidiaries as well and EMEA?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (14:49)
Yes, they are. I think there are two types of conflicts.
The first one is the budget conflict because we are, as EMEA team, we are providing service to subsidiaries, that we are taking care of their supply, that we are giving them all the spare parts, that I have my team and the percentage of work they do is assigned to every country, how much they did for every country.
So, subsidiaries always ask “Did you really do anything for us last year?” And so they always question that because our personnel costs, they come to the subsidiaries and it’s part of their budget. So that’s one, but there you can provide the data and most of you don’t really have that question that much anymore because we work so close to now with subsidiaries. We never worked with them that close before. It’s 2024 that really changed the whole set up how much we work with them. Before it was just top down, okay, this is what we need to do and we don’t have any discussion here. Now we’re really in conversation with them. So this budget topic, I think, is not that big anymore because they know what we are doing for them and we are available for them.
The second topic is that sometimes they don’t want to follow our processes. I mean, targets, we are kind of trying to align on everything on the targets and we are now trying to make sure that targets are matching the regions.
But with the processes where you have the fixed process and some subsidiary doesn’t do that, then it backfires at us mostly. Because if they didn’t do something, then, but it’s still our fault because we are responsible for spare parts. They’re not responsible for them. They’re responsible for the entire business, but we are the team who are actually responsible for the entire spare parts management in Europe.
So that’s when they don’t follow processes. We also have a catch-up course again. And I usually try to talk to service managers mostly because talking to other management people or supply chain people is a bit more difficult because they don’t have this level of knowledge what they supposed to have to understand why we are doing that. And yeah, I mean, now obviously we also try to explain more to the people who are not involved in service management too much. We explain why we are doing that, but I would say the best always was for us to talk to service managers because they understand and they are in the field, they know what is going on. That’s why they know why we are doing it.
Nina Roper Yearwood (17:22)
There’s a lot to manage. How big is your team here?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (17:26)
Yeah, the team is very slim. I wish I had more people. Because, I mean, my team is, we have two people. So me and two coordinators, wonderful team. I’m so lucky. And the thing is that we are doing our whole scope of work, is that we talk to HQ, we decide what spare parts we need to stock, then we decide when we need those spare parts to be delivered to Europe, and then we decide together with subsidiaries when they are getting those spare parts. So we plan, forecast, and then we distribute it to all the subsidiaries and our service providers. So the whole range from A to Z, what is going on with spare parts management is on me and my team.
And we also do pricing, right? So it’s not only supply. So we’re dealing with the pricing of the spare parts. So all the sales of spare parts is also on my team. And yeah, so we are very slim and very efficient. I wish we had more people, but this is what we do.
And also now we took on one of the tasks that we are also dealing with order management for our dealers directly. So if before we just delegated to subsidiaries and repair centers for Germany and BENELUX region, we are doing everything ourselves. So my team is also taking care of such kind of small orders themselves. I mean, we have obviously the system set up there, so they don’t need to do any manual orders. But they deal with all the escalations happening with the logistical side on there.
So I would say, yeah, not a big team. But I hired good people. Very proud of that. And yeah, I mean, that helps a lot. So let’s see how it develops.
Nina Roper Yearwood (19:04)
And so you’re obviously a team leader now. So how do you interpret your management role here? How do you keep things running smoothly?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (19:11)
Before I had a team, I always dealt with all these daily operation topics, which I told you about. Now, because I have a team, I could focus more on liaison role, which I have right now. So I am a middleman, using HQ and subsidiaries, and I see it as a role right now. So obviously I help my team when we have some questions and we are running some projects together. But now I am mostly focusing on the communication topic, which is a challenge for me because I’m a supply chain professional. I work with data, right? Communication is not the strongest soft skill people have in supply chain.
So I am that middleman. It’s an interesting position. And it’s interesting that I need to wear different hats the entire day. So when I talk to HQ, I represent the interests of Europe. And when I talk to Europe, I represent interest of HQ. So I need to have a balance between two of them. And that is challenging because sometimes the priorities are not matching what HQ wants and what they think that we need to do. And in this situation, I usually ask them, why do you think that we need to do that? Or why do you think that we shouldn’t do that? Then they explain the situation which they have.
For example, I think like what on top of my head is always this topic with the postcodes where I told them, guys, we cannot deliver all the spare parts to express shipments to some regions because there are like mountains and you cannot get there within a day. And so can we arrange this on our dealer portal, which we are building right now? Can we just do it with the postcodes? So we block the postcodes where we cannot deliver it. And they said that they don’t have a system like this in China. They didn’t think it would be possible because in China postcodes are changing every year, which was a surprise for me. So, mean, I can’t imagine in Europe, you know, changing postcode every year, how much bureaucratic cost is going to be. Yeah, so that was a surprise for me.
And after that, kind of like, okay, the first thing what I do with China all the time, I ask why you think we should do it and why we shouldn’t do it. What is, why do you think that would be a good idea? And then I just try to explain to them that China and Europe, there are different things happening. They also have this idea that you can deliver everything within three hours, within the entire Europe. And I told them, it’s impossible. We don’t have infrastructure like that. Would be great. But in China, we know that infrastructure is amazing there. We have deliveries. They really get everything within three hours. So I had to explain to them that it’s a very good idea, very ambitious, but it’s not possible right now. Not because of us, it’s because infrastructure in Europe is completely different comparing to China.
So I would say yes, it’s a good position to be, it’s interesting because I’ve learned so much from their perspective what they have in China. I also learned lots of things from regional perspective, now I learned a lot about how business is behaving in the south of Europe which I didn’t know before – a central Europe, obviously, I know more about it because I’m located in central Europe. Yes, but this is definitely, so my position is basically being a liaison to subsidiaries and to HQ.
Nina Roper Yearwood (22:42)
Yeah, you said it so well, like the liaison and you have a purview almost of everything that’s going on in the region that you’re covering, EMEA, as well as what’s happening with the HQ. So that’s the internal side of things, right? Now, can we just like look at the broader picture? Can you share your current priorities with us?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (23:06)
Yeah, Positec is now getting into professional range. DIY range is already established. So we are well known within DIY. We usually sell DIY products via classical – what is the name? The Baumarkt? I forgot the name. Hardware stores, right? So the hardware stores, right? So there we sell the DIY. So everything is established. We have customers which come back to us with B2B business.
And now we are getting into this professional range, which is completely new topic for us. We also have very innovative products. We deliver the battery-based garden tools, so it’s without any fuel in it. So it’s only battery-based, so you can carry it around everywhere. We do have competitors who do the same, but we are trying to out-beat them with the quality and the range we have. So I would say professional range is a focus for us and professional range we deliver that to dealers. So dealers are doing it for us. So, we have dealers, we recruited dealers and they’re selling those products to the businesses.
And I mean, the dealers, it’s a big topic that we are also preparing a platform for them. We already have one platform, but it’s going to be improved where they can do everything. So they can manage their business on our platform. They can order everything on this platform. They also manage the invoices there with us and they order spare parts there as well. So it’s not only finished goods, spare parts as well. When the customer comes, they can show this platform and say, okay, here what we can order for you. Here’s your total price for this going to be. And dealers are obviously working on commission. So they are getting commission after that.
So that is game changing for us. We haven’t been such kind of company before. We have been looking into this topic for three or four years, how to be in this business, and there is already results. So we already have lots of dealers all over Europe and we just want to bring more interesting products to the market.
Nina Roper Yearwood (25:11)
Do you have other channels that you use to sell and reach customers?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (25:19)
I know with DIY we also sell via eBay, so we do use e-commerce, but mostly we sell DIY. We sell it via B2B, so we don’t do B2C business that much. And yeah, with professional merchants only dealers, and then they do the business with their customers.
Nina Roper Yearwood (25:38)
Did I understand correctly that for the professional range market that you’re focusing on, the main channel that you’re really using is this dealer portal?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (25:50)
Yeah, yes, exactly.
Nina Roper Yearwood (25:53)
So what are the biggest challenges that you’ve encountered in growing this professional market?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (26:02)
I think the biggest challenge we have that, I mean, we hired lots of people who worked in this dealer business before, so they bring their knowledge and they tell us what they know about this business.
And I think the biggest challenge for us is, from the service perspective, is that how high expectations are about the service management. So dealers, when they talk to the salespeople, they always ask us a second topic, they ask how is your after sales? How is it happening with the after sales? Because we want to have a good service. We want to make sure that we can repair everything. And can you deliver it to us? So if with DIY business, they talk about service a bit, but it’s not such a big topic there with DIY business because it’s like you use the unit and then you just buy a new one. But if the dealer business, they really want to repay units more. And that’s why if the first topic, okay, what is our commission here? The second topic, okay, what is your after sales service? So that was a big topic for us. We were kind of expecting that, but we didn’t think it would be that big in a sense with the spare parts. So it got so serious and so fast.
So the highest expectations that all the spare parts will be available for the dealers to order. That is a big one comparing that we have European competitors who have the warehouse and the warehouse is kind of attached to the factory. So they don’t need to produce all the spare parts in advance. They can like, okay, we have a back order, let’s just produce this spare part today and we will ship it out tomorrow. We as like a satellite of Chinese company, we need to make sure that we really have all the spare parts in stock. And that is obviously additional inventory costs, but the good thing that we get supply from China directly. So it means that we have more competitive prices there.
Nina Roper Yearwood (27:56)
That’s a lot to really work on and in such a competitive market with already established and big names there and known names. So about the dealer portal, you mentioned earlier that you’ve had some successes there. Can you share any of those milestones that you’ve achieved so far?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (28:24)
Yeah, I think the milestones which I can say from the after sales perspective is that now we have more professional approach to the training. So this is a massive milestone because before the training was like, okay, we do something, we tell dealers what they need to do. But now we have very, very organized training. My colleagues worked very hard on that one. I wasn’t on this topic on the side, so I told the guys, okay, here are the spare parts, which we think the dealers need to have in stock practically. So this recommended spare parts list of bare parts. So they wouldn’t have the downtime of a unit.
But I think that the biggest milestone that’s now, actually now in January and February, our salesmen just all over Europe are doing the trainings with dealers to make sure that they can do repairs properly. And I think that is the biggest milestone from the after sales perspective. I will say that.
Nina Roper Yearwood (29:21)
So I guess you’ve already touched upon why this is the training, the professionalized training is very important. Can you just also touch upon why this is such an important part of your strategy?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (29:39)
The training is important because we want to reduce calls to us during the season. Help plan was I think overwhelmed quite a lot last year because some trainers, maybe dealers didn’t attend the trainings maybe they didn’t listen to the trainers that well, maybe the trainers were not that accessible as we thought they were. So the main goal for us was that we help the dealers in advance so in the season they don’t have, I mean, they spend time on selling products. So if they spend time on doing some repairs, which they do not know how to do, then they are losing some potential sales. So for us, it’s important that they are prepared for the season. They are ready to make sure that they have time for sales and their technicians have time for repairs. And they do their repairs very quickly.
Because, I’m in professional range, if you have a unit out for one day, it means that you already lost some money there and those robotic mowers, they are replacing manual labor. So I assume that, for example, hotel had some gardener there. Now they fire the gardener to these robotics to have a stable normal mowed garden and now the robotic mower is not working. Then what’s the point of that? Why to save money on the manual labor if the robotic motor is not working?
So that was the main goal for us that the trainees would help to understand how the products work and to reduce the downtime for sure and to make sure that our dealers have more time for sales not only for escalations during the season.
Nina Roper Yearwood (31:18)
Interesting, because I also see here that with a business based on building a relationship with dealers, at the end of the day, keeping a strong relationship with them is really important for the business. So how do you keep the dealers happy?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (31:42)
I think the key is transparency. From the spare parts perspective, I can tell you that we had issues with the spare parts last year, where sometimes we didn’t do things on time. But what I learned from last year is that communication is the key. Well, we all know that, but you know when it hits you hard in your face and you’re like, oh wow, communication is the key. And yeah, so when we had some issues with the spare parts, now we approach it more proactively. So we talk to the sales guys, we tell them, hey guys, I mean, we have this issue. We don’t have a solution right now. Can you please talk to your customer and tell them we are working on it? We will give you a solution. We just make sure that they know that we are working on it, it’s not like they’re forgotten.
So I think that’s, to make the dealer happy is to make sure that your salespeople, internal salespeople are happy. Now we build the really good relations to our sales team and professional range. So I never had such an experience with DIY business. So with professional range team, they understand a bit more about the spare parts business because I mean, it’s one of their core things which dealers want. And we talk to sales team quite a lot to deal with those issues. And if nobody hears about the spare parts, it means that we did a good job. It means that there are no issues. The dealer is happy when they don’t complain. And I mean, they will not say that we have done a good job. They will just not say anything. So if we don’t hear anything from the dealers, then it means that we did a good job.
Nina Roper Yearwood (33:19)
Well said. So just looking ahead, what are the growth areas in your industry?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (33:26)
Yes, I would say the growth area now, our owner of Positec, Don Gao, he said that the battery-based garden tools is the future.
So fuel-based, fuel-powered garden tools, they will go away and it’s kind of well-known fact, but still it’s not that well-known fact. With all the regulation as well in Europe right now where we want to reduce this carbon footprint so much every fuel-based gunnels will go away for sure and just a matter of fact when it will go away, so I say this is the industry one of the biggest spins and yeah, I do not know, I mean if there is anything else obviously there are some things like that what will disrupt the industry is AI.
I mean, AI is on the talk everywhere. Our competitors use AI. We use AI for our robot mowers where you, I do not know if you ever had robotic mowers. So it’s usually when you have a robotic mower, you need to dig a hole to put a boundary wire around it to make sure that your robotic mower is not going to run away to the neighbors on the street. So it’s kind of like a fence, the fence for them, which is underground.
Now with AI you don’t need to do that anymore. You just plug and play. You just put it on the garden. Obviously you need to work things out a bit there and program what they need to do, but you can do it in the app. So you just mark what area needs to be mowned and it’s working. It’s, I mean, I can’t imagine myself digging my garden and putting the boundary wire in because well, I wouldn’t do that. But with AI you don’t need to do things like this anymore.
So I think that disrupts the industry a lot, AI like in other industries as well. And that also brings new customers like the ones who are not that tech geeks, who will not, or garden geeks who will not do anything with their garden. They just want garden to be mowed. That’s it. They don’t want to do anything else with that. So I would say AI is really, really big topic here.
Nina Roper Yearwood (35:38)
Interesting. And how do see you and your team making the biggest impact in the next few years?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (35:47)
Yes, I am now occupied with the topic of right to repair. I’m pretty sure you heard of this movement where in the EU people actually want to repair more and there are already laws passed. We are not within this law, but I’m pretty sure it will come as well to our range. So our topic right now is to make sure that we extend the range of products which we can repair. Robotic mowers, obviously we repair them. It’s no brainer. We have to repair it. It’s an expensive tool, but we are hoping we can repair more tools which are not that expensive but at a reasonable cost and I think that is one of the directions we are moving in right now and also make sure that for out of warranty repairs we also have supply of spare parts so maybe customers can repair themselves some which you don’t need to send to repair center to get it repaired.
So those, I think, one of the biggest topics which we have right now and would be cool, but I think we are not there yet and I don’t think that we’ll be there yet in the next few years is to have this predictive service where we can, you know, get in the app, you get notification “Hey, it seems like your front wheel needs to be changed on your robotic mower. Please change it in the next two months”. So that would be cool to do. I know the car industry is doing that quite a lot when I worked for the truck producer company, they had that and it looked very cool. So where you can see like, okay, am I in the red zone already? Then do I need to change my view? That would be interesting as predictive service, but I don’t think that we are there yet.
So I would say the repair, right to repair, and this is definitely the topic. And predictive service would be good to have, but let’s see how it continues.
Nina Roper Yearwood (37:38)
Okay, as we begin to wrap up, looking back, what has been your proudest achievement in this role so far?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (37:47)
I think the proudest achievement I have is to build a good team. I know as a manager maybe you need to say that, but I do think that I built a very good team. I can rely on that team. So when they do all the topics which are really about the supply and everything, so they free up my time to do these negotiations between HQ and subsidiaries.
I mean as a fact that last year we reached 98% of repairs to be done right away. It means that our service providers, they had spare parts on stock already when they got the repair. They didn’t need to contact us to get the spare parts. They already had everything ready. They could do the repair in 98% of cases and it’s quite a lot. We get lots of repairs in high season. So I think, but that is connecting to the team.
So I hired good people, I trained good people and now I think they are also training me in some topics as well. So I think that was the biggest achievement so far for me as a manager.
Nina Roper Yearwood (38:49)
Very inspiring words from you, Anastasia! So you’ve come a long way in your career. Do you have any advice for someone up and coming who you know wants to take a managerial role in the spare parts business?
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (39:01)
I wonder if lots of people come with a supply chain background and if they do, I think that’s a good thing and a bad thing.
The good thing is that, okay, you understand how the supply works, but service supply chain is a bit different. So you really need to, if you are getting into this position as a supply chain professional, you need to open your eyes on the topics what happens after the good is sold, because finished goods obviously sell at the most important thing, but what is more important is retain the customer. It’s better to have the old customer who is loyal to you than recruiting a new customer because the new customer takes too much time and money to recruit.
And service management is the key here. So I would say that if you come into this position as a new person who doesn’t know anything about spare parts, first you need to talk to service managers. They have field experience and you need to talk to them. And you also need to make sure that you are very on point with the communication skills because that is service managers A&O of communication, of the service managers you really need to be able to communicate. So, yeah, service managers is a wonderful source to talk to and they really have lots of experience. They really like to show this experience. Obviously, there are lots of too many details sometimes when they say, but you can sort it out, but yeah.
And try to improve your communication skills. That’s really helpful and that helped me a lot. And I would say as well that you really need to go if you go to Copperberg events, that’s definitely helpful as well. When I was in Stockholm at one, this Copperberg Spare Parts Business Platform Power of 50, I was in Stockholm, it inspired me so much. There are so many people from different industries, mostly heavy industries. So I was kind of like a unicorn there because well, nobody was from my industry there.
And it was very interesting to check what people are doing on a completely different level. I mean, we are a serious business, but we are not a heavy industry business and they definitely have a bit of different set of spare parts. I would say the Copperberg events really helped a lot to educate myself how spare parts business is working.
Nina Roper Yearwood (41:19)
Well, that’s great to hear. So communication and just stay in the know, essentially, continuous learning.
This has been such a fascinating conversation, Anastasia. And thank you for sharing your insights, your experience. And thanks again for being here.
Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker (41:38)
Thank you, thank you, Nina. I appreciate to be invited to this.