 |
Company History
Global Bike Inc. has a pragmatic design philosophy that comes from its deep
roots in both the off-road trail racing and long-distance road racing sports.
Nearly 20 years ago, its founders designed their first bikes out of necessity—they
had races to win and the bikes that were available at the time did not perform
to their extremely high standards. So, they took matters into their own hands and
built legendary bikes that would outlast and outperform the competition. From
these humble origins, Global Bike Incorporated was born and continues to
deliver innovative high-performance bicycles to the world’s most demanding
riders.
This heritage of entrepreneurial spirit and quest for design perfection is still the
cornerstone of GBI’s corporate philosophy. GBI produces bikes for the most
demanding competitors—whether the competition is on pavement or dirt, for
money, fame or just bragging rights.
John Davis earned his racing scars in the mountain racing circuit in America,
where he won numerous downhill and cross-country championships. Early on,
John realized that the mass-produced bicycles available were inadequate in
many ways for the type of racing he was doing. So, John stripped four of his old
bikes down to the bare metal and rebuilt them into a single “Frankenstein” bike
that he rode to win the national championship. Once news of his Frankenstein
bike got out, John’s friends - and even his competitors - began asking him to
build them a Frankenstein bike too. While recovering from an injury in 1990, John
started producing the first series of Frankenstein bikes in his garage—each one
custom-built from cannibalized parts from other bikes. As more and more orders
came in, John successfully expanded Frankenstein Bikes from his garage
operations into a full-blown manufacturing facility in Dallas and began
producing custom trail bikes which he sold through a network of specialized bike
dealers throughout the country.
At nearly the same time, halfway around the world in Heidelberg, Germany,
Peter Weiss was studying engineering and competing in regional touring races
on weekends. In between his races and studies, Peter worked at a bike shop in
Heidelberg, fixing student bikes and tuning the touring bikes that he and his
friends rode for competitions. As Peter’s reputation as a fierce competitor and
mechanical wizard grew, he also began to design and build road bikes based
on an ultra-light composite frame that he had created for one of his engineering
courses. Peter’s innovative use of carbon composite materials allowed him to
build a frame that was significantly stronger and one tenth the weight of
competing frames. As a student, Peter did not have a great deal of financial
resources, so he partnered with a local company that manufactured his frame
designs as a contract manufacturer. Soon, Peter’s frames were being used by © 2011 SAP AG Page 3
GBI Overview
racers all over Europe and he started Heidelberg Composites to market and
design frames which would be fabricated by a contract manufacturer on a
larger scale. Heidelberg Composites sold its frames to specialized bike stores
throughout Europe and directly to racing teams, eventually becoming the leader
in lightweight touring frames in Europe.
Through a twist of fate, Peter and John met each other in 2000 and immediately
recognized their mutual passion for performance and complimentary business
models. Each had been looking for a partner in another racing field and each
had been looking for a partner in a different market. They quickly realized that a
merger between their two companies would be extremely synergistic and that
the combination of their product lines and regional distribution channels would
generate a great deal of efficiencies.
So, in 2001, Heidelberg Composites and Frankenstein Bikes merged to form
Global Bike Incorporated. Today, John and Peter share the responsibilities for
managing GBI’s growing organization as co-CEO’s. John is responsible for sales,
marketing, service & support, IT, finance and human resources groups and Peter
is responsible for research, design, procurement and manufacturing groups from
an organizational reporting perspective.
Figure 1: GBI organizational structure
However, GBI is a process-centric organization, so John and Peter prefer to think
of the processes that they are responsible for, rather than the functional areas of
the company that report to them. From this perspective, Peter is responsible for
Idea-to-Market and Build-to-Stock and John is responsible for Order-to-Cash and
Service & Support, as well as the supporting services for all four key processes.
The simple way to look at their responsibilities would be to say that Peter spends
money and builds products and John sells products and brings in money.
Corporate Overview
Due to several tax and export issues, GBI’s headquarters is located in Dallas and
GBI is registered as a US company, following US GAAP accounting standards.
GBI operates a subsidiary company, GBI Europe, which is based in Heidelberg
and is subject to IFRS accounting standards and German tax regulations.
Material planning, finance, administration, HR and IT functions are consolidated
at the Dallas headquarters. The Dallas facility manufactures products for the US
and export markets and its warehouse manages product distribution for the
central US and internet retailers. GBI also has warehouses for shipping and export
in both San Diego and Miami. San Diego handles West Coast distribution and
exports for Asia, while Miami handles East Coast distribution and Latin America
exports.
GBI Europe has its headquarters in Heidelberg Germany. The majority of
research and development is housed in the Heidelberg offices. Heidelberg is
also the main manufacturing facility for GBI in Europe. The Heidelberg
warehouse handles all shipping for southern Europe. The Hamburg warehouse
handles all shipping for the UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa. GBI sells its bikes
throughout the world and employs approximately 100 people, 2/3rds of the
employees are in the US and the remaining 1/3 in Europe.
Design Build Support Sell
Idea-to-Market
1.1 Product Research
1.2 Product Design
1
1.3 Product Trials
Order-to-Cash
3.1 Marketing Management
3.2 Sales Management
3
3.3 Partner Management
3.4 Invoice Management
Corporate Services
5 Procurement
6 Financials & Controlling
7 Human Resources
8 Information Technology
9 Strategy Management
5
6
7
8
9
Build-to-Stock
2.4 Inventory Management
2.2 Production Management
2
2.3 Quality Assurance
2.1 Production Planning
3.4 Invoice Management
4.1 Support (Problem-to-Resolution)
4 Service & Support
4.3 Returns & Repairs
4.2 Partner Support Enablement
Figure 2: GBI Enterprise Process Map
Print this post
Comments
Post a Comment