Posts
1614
Joined
7/30/2009
Location
Mount Waverley, VIC
AU
Edited Date/Time
11/8/2025 5:26am
Some very harsh words… and by the way he is talking it feels like KTM will become more monetarily successful than ever under BAJAJ leadership… selling mostly little street bikes.
Little KTM street bikes are huge in Australia, in the only demographic keeping the Australian street bike scene alive — Asian and South Asian riders in their 20s
With the 50% cut in RnD and Marketing — KTM’s ’ready to race’ moniker with surely become as joke as the quality, and standard setting design, (e start, 4 stroke, hydro clutch etc etc) KTM is renowned for completely disappears.
Well it was a good 15 year or so run in the American motocross market if you start with Dungey. 26 years if you start with Kelly Smith’s win at high point in 99.
The Japanese manufacturers just waited them out. Ducati and triumph must have had a good idea what was going on 5 years ago thinking they can be the ones to scoop up the market.
Triumph, BMW, Royal Enfield and many others already make bikes in India. And they get excellent reliability reviews.
Everything he talked about made sense. 4000 managers and 1000 workers is a joke. In the world I work in (technically difficult construction) we are roughly 1-5 managers / hands on workers, inverting that ratio to 4-1 is absurd, and speaks volumes about the efficiency of the hands on workers. Understand that efficiency comes from effective management, but..
KTM never should have gotten into bicycles. It’s not that they don’t have a good product, but that market is volatile..
The one thing that I like about the current KTM product is the user friendly design as far as working on the bikes. I hope they retain that tradition, whenever I work on a Japanese bike the way they use 3 parts (bolt, washer, spacer) instead of one engineered fastener just bugs me. And overall durability is great for an old rider like myself, my KTMs have given great service life.
It’s truly sad that European manufacturers/politicians have shit the bed so thoroughly. Leaders long ago lost focus on what’s important for long term success and went down the rabbit holes of good feelings..
Peak mismanagement was walking into a dealership and seeing an electric motorcycle with a GasGas brand. It was like the second Gas was emphasizing the point of how stupid KTM had gotten. That was only topped by the damn GasGas mountain bike debacle.
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My observations over these last few uears…
KTM has been in Bicycles for many years. It’s the recent eMTB expansion that I think most people are pointing at as a business mistake…as commented on by Bajaj.
KTM made money “hand over fist” during 2020-2022 and never learned to tone it down when things (the market) started slowing to a normal pace in 2023.
The way things were going, the way the company was being managed, the money owed and the money that was continuously borrowed…well…the Bajaj take over became inevitable. Likewise, Bajaj changing things to a profit model of their understanding was also…sadly…inevitable.
Here in the U.S. & other markets, KTM makes good money selling high-end competition dirt bikes including electrics for kids and even middle to high-end ADVs and street-legal Enduros…and, yes, a few street bikes. Can Bajaj screw that up by leaning into “the street stuff” too much? Sure. Can they maintain the product development and creativity that KTM brands are known for? We’ll see.
Videos like this don’t seem too promising for the European employees; but, the commentary that European manufacturing is too expensive and non-productive is a known issue. Triumph and BMW have already embraced this fact. Although, those companies have a lot of white collar employees in Europe that run design, engineering, R&D, marketing/racing…control the brand…etc. I think that might be lost in translation at KTM. In the Baja model, I can see a lot of that going to India which, in my mind, will cause the KTM brand to change the most.
Again…we’ll see.
KTM is my favorite Indian motorcycle brand
Reading between the lines- Off road bikes are no longer the priority.
Expect development to slow down dramatically.
Tbf, will that be a bad thing? Is this level of development and subsequent price increase sustainable?
It may do us all good if it slows down a little.
Different industry. KTM doesn’t machine the parts, they integrate finished assemblies. Lots of supply chain mgmt, quality, legal, foreign trade specialists. Does not mean they are/aren’t over staffed. Also R&D investment is another reason for more white collar. Cutting R&D is sending a bad but probably necessary message to investment and rider community.
His rant about thousands of managers is total BS. He seems to consider that all his "white collars" are useless since they have "nothing to do with producing motorbikes". Yeah, right, R&D, design, marketing are overloaded with totally futile managers and didn't have anything to do with KTM's rebirth in the last 25 years...
One thing seems clear: the brand we knew is gone.
It does sound like the brand we knew may cease to exist in a way. His statements are a complete 180 from the foundation KTM was built on from my perspective as a consumer. Profitability over quality is a tale as old as time…big bummer if this plays out that way
All I want to understand is if KTM-Husq-Gas will still run teams in MX, SX and Billy Bolt
Profitability over quality is what Pierer did the past few years, prioritizing sales numbers (to dealers) to boost share price in spite of decreasing sales to customers (and mounting engine issues).
That and crazy spending like bicycle business costing them 400 millions, MV Agusta 220 millions and leading them to the edge of the cliff.
So yeah, hopefully they will take another direction.
They've said they'll focus on their core business, it doesn't mean they're giving up dirtbikes, quite the contrary, but unfortunately 80 different dirt bikes models every year (and corresponding spare parts for decades) is not sustainable.
Are you sure about the bicycle business?
I thought KTM ‘bike’ was owned by a complexly different outfit than Pierer.
Yeah sorry, indeed KTM bike industries are a different company (split from motorcycles when Pierer bought the motorcycle part in 1992), I was talking about PMG acquisitions of Felt, R Raymon and selling Husqvarna and Gasgas electric bicycles, these were huge loss makers.
$$$$ Three Billion in Debt? Yeah, Someone needs to be spoken to. After $100 Million, harsh words are Okay.
Well said! Manufacturing is about repeatability and efficiency. Repeatability equals reliability and efficiency (less headcount, more automation) equals profitability.
Hello Mr. Pierer, I'd like you to meet Miss Management.
imagine running a race team 5-1… what does he determine as ‘white collar’ and ‘blue collar’ — are just the people building the bikes blue collar? Or are race mechanics as well? Or does he consider anyone involved in marketing (or which includes the race team) white collar? Are the racers white collar or blue collar?
Who the fuck knows…
What is most troubling is the ‘European bike builders get paid too much and don’t work long enough hours’… the death of unions and government protecting the workers is the fucking death of the western civilization that made America and the western world so great…
White collar CEO class millionaire cunts calling for the blue collar workers to work harder for less is such scummy cunty behavior that should be fucking stomped out of existence. Abunchacunts.
Pit Row
KTM just went Katoom
They're a greedy company and it caught up. I don't feel bad for them at all.
It never made any sense to me when they acquired Husky & then Gas. The pie wasn’t going to get three times bigger so they were just cutting thinner slices.
It didn’t equate to me - obviously the people were pretty smart to grow KTM as they did but then went and made that very basic error.
I’d say everyone on the race team, except the team manager, is blue collar. And there aren’t many people who work harder/longer than the race team.
As to the treatment of the workers, in Austria vs India? We’re (US-Euro workers) competing against almost slave labor, and it sucks. The only real advantage we have is smart, efficient management, but KTM has given that away with a top heavy management team that ran up a huge debt instead of staying smart and efficient.
As always, the hands on workers get hosed. Management gets golden parachutes while the workers get pink slips. KTM will continue to exist, but they are becoming just another multi-national corporation, and that failure is 100% owned by KTMs outgoing management.
Agree with everything you said here except for the part about golden parachutes for the white collar folks. Hard to imagine Bajaj would agree to any kind of golden parachute arrangement for outgoing management? It's more like telling them to not let the screen door hit them in the azz on their way out.
KTM started making bicycles in 1964, with its first production model being a cruiser called the Fleetwing, designed for the US market. The company then began selling bikes in Austria, starting with models like the Dorina and Exzellent.
I have worked for an Indian owned company.
My manager was Kalash Bhangra.
He had to leave the US every so often bc of visa issues.
I hated every minute and understood very little of what he said. . . . Ridiculous.
He had no idea of what I actually did to keep things going... 😂 Lol....electricity stuff.
Absolutely pinched every penny. . .I mean squeezed the hell out of it.
Demanded discounts from preferred vendors.
Couldn't get the parts needed but got some bullshit workaround. . ..
Made things really difficult.
Eventually sold shit products and lost buyers.
They bought from Exxon Mobile, that was a great company to work for.
Closing the doors in 2 weeks....
Pisto
In order to get the deal approved, they likely have to provide some fairly generous severance packages.
Well that's a lie... plentyyy of issues with bikes oem'ed by people who use the roadside as a bathroom...
You never know , but considering the dire position KTM was in and how they had already screwed the financial pooch , I personally doubt they were in any kind of position to try to negotiate generous severance packages for ousted management and were more concerned with not going belly up. Also, the demeanor displayed by the BAJA fella shows that he was pretty flabbergasted how KTM had pissed their money away, so why would Bajaj consider giving out golden parachutes to Management they let go?
Something like this takeover by Bajaj was always going to happen - when you run the debt through the roof for "growth at all costs because share price go up", the tide eventually goes out and you're left stranded (see pic). This is a side effect of rewarding executives with equity - they can light a match with a temporary boom in share price with of a bunch of stupid acquisitions and short-sighted decisions, cash out their equity and then leave the husk of a company in their wake. You can thank the Jack Welch/Modern MBA school of thought for that.
What I'm wondering is how parts availability will be on slightly older models. I don't race for contingency, wrench on things when they break and my dirt bikes are paid off/bought with cash, so I don't give a shit about upgrading my bike every year. Given KTM constantly changed bikes in the past and they're loaded with electronics, will I still be able to get e.g. a sensor from a 2022 bike in a few years?
The catch is KTM positions itself as a premium brand like Ducati and Aprilia. BMW is also a premium brand, and gets away with this because they mostly use Chinese/Indian parts on the lower-spec bikes to keep them affordable and market them across the globe, while keeping the higher end models (boxer engine adventure bikes, S1000RR and its variants) in Germany. KTM already does this with their smaller Duke line; the Duke 200 is extremely popular in India right now and is made/assembled in India.
The issue will be if KTM tries to remain a premium brand and assemble their higher end bikes (250/450 dirt bikes, 300/250/150 2 strokes, Superduke, etc.) in India, as the market likely won't pay e.g. $13,000+ OTD for an Indian 450 motocross bike. Conversely, if they choose to use Indian manufacturing to turn those flagship models into "discount" bikes, they'll be closer to Royal Enfield/CFMOTO in the "good enough on a budget but not high quality" market.
The only way to maintain brand image is to keep the flagship models in Austria, IMO.
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