Just saw on adventure rider forum where Kawasaki is going to "spin off" its motorcycle division and make it a separate company. So what does that mean? According to the article the name could change. I guess I could see this happening being that the motorcycle industry is dying a slow death. Looks like the motorcycle division is a large stone around Kawasaki's neck. Imho I think the motorcycle spin off company will have to show a profit without the giant resources of Kawasaki Heavy Industry. Well this is my take on it...What do you think?
Is this sad news about Kawasaki ?
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Shawn K
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Quite the opposite. Kawasaki's motorcycle division represents but a tiny fraction of KHI. Their bread and butter is in aerospace, heavy shipping, ultra-heavy diesel engines, rail, and gas turbines. Their annual revenue was over $15 billion last year. Their motorcycle division is practically a hobby business.
My thought would be to break them off to operate in a more lean and rapid fashion.
Uncle Phil
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Corporate Speak - 'This will help them make decisions quicker'
Reality - 'They are a boat anchor around our neck and bleeding us dry. We've got to stop it'
Corporate Speak - 'Nothing will change. This will be much better'
Reality - 'Nothing will stay the same. This will be much better for the mother ship as soon as we can unload this boat anchor to an investor's group'.
Been through 18 acquisitions/de-acquisitions in my corporate career and understand 'Corporate Speak' very fluently.
Reality - 'They are a boat anchor around our neck and bleeding us dry. We've got to stop it'
Corporate Speak - 'Nothing will change. This will be much better'
Reality - 'Nothing will stay the same. This will be much better for the mother ship as soon as we can unload this boat anchor to an investor's group'.
Been through 18 acquisitions/de-acquisitions in my corporate career and understand 'Corporate Speak' very fluently.
ToddC
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Not as many as Phil.......but I have seen very similar things when large companies were sold off. I was with one company who went thru 4 owner changes during the 13 years I was there. 
T
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I was with the same company for over 16 years as a CAD product designer of automotive exterior signal lighting . went through 3 buy-outs , each one things got worse . There was 6 of us that knew what we were doing and gave a damn , but a decision was made to get rid of us for cheaper "designers" & "engineers" in Detroit - "Anybody can design " - Yeah right , so the Detroit "designers" designed tail lights that could not be produced in the company's Injection molding machines or pass the FMVSS requirements . Then they lost their QS-9000 certifications from the Big Three , & all the new jobs . Took on some jobs other supplier companies did not want to mess with anymore , for a few years . Not profitable though . Now they are bankrupt . Some Management ! And too stubborn & profoundly stupid to rehire us that knew what we were doing for so many years with successful , produceable & FMVSS legal designs , and good certifications .
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Seen this happen in my line of work too. Samsung corporation had a office machine division that made printers and copying machines. For the last 10 years because of the computers and smart devices the amount of printer business has shrunk as the need for paper documents fall. So after years of losses Spun its office division off to HP. With in a year Samsungs office products were HP products with a Samsung badge on the front of the printer. Now today its all HP products as Samsung now focuses on LCD and LED televisions smart phones, chips computers etc. I wish Kawasaki well as I had one of their products for 17 years and it was a fine motorcycle. But it is what it is as even mighty Harley Davidson is bleeding money.
Been through 5 takeovers/mergers over the years, happy to be retired. The proper spelling of manager is M-A-N-G-L-E-R.
Did all recreational products (ATV, watersports, snowmobiles, etc) get spun off?
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Yeah and their engines in John Deere small tractors ?
dr1954
Rick
Yeah and their engines in John Deere small tractors ?
And lawnmowers?
And lawnmowers?
BakerBoy
It's all small stuff.
^Kawasaki has been making engines and small motored equipment for other brands for many many decades. For example, in the 1970's, Kawasaki designed and built John Deere's snowmobiles as well as their own., producing them in the Lincoln NE area.
Kawi has competed well in the engine market, supplying engines for small equipment (mowers for example), just as Kohler, Briggs & Stratton, etc.
Kawi has competed well in the engine market, supplying engines for small equipment (mowers for example), just as Kohler, Briggs & Stratton, etc.
As a proportion of the population, independent thinkers....wind in the hair types.....are a declining sort. Support businesses will follow.
Kawasaki built the engines for John Deere snowmobiles for the 79-84 model years. But, they did not build or design the snowmobiles. John Deere designed and built them in their Horicon Works factory. Kawasaki built their own snowmobiles in the Lincoln Factory.
Shawn K
Professional Cat Confuser
I would use the phrase "hated sort". In my experience, most people genuinely can't stand those who don't follow the herd. They may find them academically curious from a distance, but are genuinely bothered by having them in their midst.
Any effort to make us all the same is destined to failure. Some 300,000 advanced degrees over the last eight years in social sciences (US alone), psychology, humanities, this studies, that studies and how many unique or significant theses and dissertations out of the bunch? Is there anything remaining to discover relative to human behavior or motivation? It's all simply redefinitionization of observations made and recorded over thousands of years.
We are different for primarily one reason....residual species survival mechanisms. If we COULD all behave identically, we would all have become predator food shortly after we dropped out of the trees. Survivors are those with specific instinctive responses or oddball thought patterns. Modern life has become so relatively easy over the last three or four generations that we are now overwhelmed by behavior types who would have been Darwined out of the gene pool just a hundred years back.
Those responsible for our successes relative to survival these days are those who are either different or who have a highly developed survival instinct...Einstein's, DaVinci's, Newton's, Euler's, Curie's, Mendel's, Vivien Thomases, successful pilots, old soldiers, race car drivers, bike riders, carpenters/builders, machinists, electricians, hunters.... hardly the 'civilized' or easily lead elements among us.
Maybe it's simply past time to stop floating the others along.
Excuse me while I find my flame-retardant pantyhose.