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Speaker 1: Fun fact, Still, as in the power Tools are celebrating

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Speaker 1: one hundred years this year. They've been here for forty

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Speaker 1: of those in New Zealand. It was founded by Andrea Still.

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Speaker 1: This is back in nineteen twenty six. These days his grandson,

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Speaker 1: doctor Nicholas Still is chair of the advisory board and

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Speaker 1: the supervisory Board, and doctor Nicholas Still is in the

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Speaker 1: country and he is with us. Good morning to you,

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Speaker 1: good morning mate. Now the slight coughing in the background

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Speaker 1: there was you are you going to be okay for

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Speaker 1: the interview? You will survive? You will survive the experience?

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Speaker 1: I will, I will? You started. Here's the thing, so

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Speaker 1: full declaration. I'm one of you biggest fans. No one

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Speaker 1: has more still equipment in my garage than I do.

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Speaker 1: But what I don't have is a chainsaw, which is

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Speaker 1: where you began. Yes, you only made chainsaws.

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Speaker 2: We only made chainsaw. My grandfather basically invented the thing.

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Speaker 2: And well back then it was the late weight unit

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Speaker 2: was weighing forty four kilograms, so it really took people

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Speaker 2: to operate it. But from then on, I think we've

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Speaker 2: come a long way to pack the same power into

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Speaker 2: a much much later.

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Speaker 1: When did you branch out into other things beyond chainsaws.

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Speaker 2: I think it was in the sixties sometimes after the war,

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Speaker 2: my grandfather started to build tractors, if you believe, if

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Speaker 2: you believe it, and my father always told me that

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Speaker 2: his best and first business decision was to get his

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Speaker 2: father to bury the tractors again and concentrate and focus

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Speaker 2: on the chainsaws. And then later on my father decided

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Speaker 2: to use the engine knowledge that he had acquired with

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Speaker 2: the chainsaws and try to build other outdoor power tools.

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Speaker 1: Were you always going to be in the business.

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Speaker 2: Yes. Always. As a child, I played in the factory,

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Speaker 2: which you can't, of course do it today because of

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Speaker 2: security regulations. Back then, it was all healthy for you

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Speaker 2: if and nobody cared, and I always wanted to be

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Speaker 2: in the business.

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Speaker 1: What's your view generally, because you're not the only one,

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Speaker 1: your father, I think your siblings are on the board

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Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. What's your view of

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Speaker 1: family run businesses as a model versus hiring the best

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Speaker 1: talent that aren't family.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's we generally we do both. But family run

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Speaker 2: businesses they simply can take strategic decisions better than publicly

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Speaker 2: owned companies because well we we are not. We don't

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Speaker 2: report to any boards outside of the family, so it's

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Speaker 2: it's we can. We are independent and in the long run,

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Speaker 2: at least for us, that has been a lot better.

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Speaker 1: The quality story, which is what you're known for. You

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Speaker 1: make tools that last. Yes, was that from day one

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Speaker 1: bar plan? Yes, that was.

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Speaker 2: From day one the plan. My father, my grandfather always

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Speaker 2: said our tools are only as good at the service

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Speaker 2: that comes with it. So it's even even the thing

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Speaker 2: that we do with our servicing dealers. That is basically

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Speaker 2: from day one, the idea and the model.

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Speaker 1: Give us some metrics. How big are you? Where are you?

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Speaker 1: What do you sell? How do your manufacture?

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Speaker 2: Yes, we now have a turnover of five point five

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Speaker 2: billion euros. I don't know how much that is, which

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Speaker 2: about teen Yeah, we employ approximately twenty thousand people worldwide.

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Speaker 2: We manufacture in eight countries all over the globe. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: we produce I think about fifteen million power heads each year.

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Speaker 1: How do you control that? The bigger you get, how

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Speaker 1: do you control them?

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Speaker 2: Well, we just grow organically, so it's it's it's fairly easy.

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Speaker 1: Are you a growth company still?

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we keep on growing and we've grown last

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Speaker 2: year and that wasn't easy because of the world economy,

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Speaker 2: but we did.

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Speaker 1: Are you part of the economic story in that sense?

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Speaker 1: Will people buy more equipment or less equipment depending on

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Speaker 1: their personal economic circumstances In a way.

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Speaker 2: Yes, especially when it comes to domestic users. On the

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Speaker 2: other hand, we have a lot of professional users that

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Speaker 2: use our products to earn their living, so they just

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Speaker 2: need to keep on buying.

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Speaker 1: What's the split with commercial versus domestic.

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Speaker 2: In unit cells, it's about twenty five percent professional seventy

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Speaker 2: five percent domestic. But of course in money, it's.

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Speaker 1: With the commission would have been a great deal more

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Speaker 1: the number you gave me off here on the battery

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Speaker 1: I'm fascinated with. So the battery evolution started win for

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Speaker 1: your company?

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Speaker 2: Well, we decided to go into battery in two thousand

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Speaker 2: and eight when we realized that the batteries were becoming

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Speaker 2: good enough to actually power an adult power tool, and

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Speaker 2: from then on it has been evolving ever since. We

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Speaker 2: now sell twenty seven percent of our worldwide unit sales

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Speaker 2: as battery powered tools.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that surprised me. That's a low It struck me

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Speaker 1: as a low number. I'm a recent convert. If I

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Speaker 1: am a convert but I bought some battery stuff recently.

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Speaker 1: What's holding it back from being one hundred percent?

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Speaker 2: It's really depending on the country. We have countries like

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Speaker 2: New Zealand where we already sell more than half of

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Speaker 2: our units as battery, but especially in developing countries, only

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Speaker 2: about two percent of the people are buying.

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Speaker 1: Battery And is that what is that psychological? Is it?

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Speaker 2: No? I think it's infrastructure. If you're in the jungle somewhere,

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Speaker 2: you can't.

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Speaker 1: Plug it in. You can't plug it in, you need

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Speaker 1: the petrol. Yes, it's unique to New Zealand. The franchise

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Speaker 1: system that I thought you ran is only run in

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Speaker 1: this country.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's a New Zealand invention by the dealers of

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Speaker 2: New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: Is that why it's so successful here? Because it is?

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Speaker 1: It is indisputably successful here.

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Speaker 2: Yes it is. And I think it is so successful

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Speaker 2: because our dealers have created that really really powerful retail

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Speaker 2: brand for themselves, with all with all the ideas, with

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Speaker 2: all the enthusiasm that goes with it, and it's I

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Speaker 2: think it's a really fascinating success story.

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Speaker 1: I can't work out whether I'm a fan of franchises

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Speaker 1: or not because you're buying into something, and the risk

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Speaker 1: you take as a person buying in is it can

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Speaker 1: become a cult or whatever, you know, and you've got

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Speaker 1: to follow the rules and not be yourself. And yet

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Speaker 1: in this particular scenario it works. How does it work internationally?

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Speaker 1: If you don't run a franchise, they work for you.

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Speaker 2: Yes they are, of course, all of them are independent dealers,

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Speaker 2: the same as here in New Zealand. But they carry steel.

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Speaker 2: But we don't have a retail brand internationally called still shop.

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Speaker 2: Everybody you find Mike's mowers and.

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Speaker 1: Sell some steel stuff. Yes, see, why don't you just

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Speaker 1: implement that everywhere you count? Because because the beauty of

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Speaker 1: going into a shop, that the only place you can

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Speaker 1: buy that stuff is at the shop. Yes, that strikes

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Speaker 1: me as very powerful.

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Speaker 2: It is, and I think it would be a good idea,

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Speaker 2: but only really, only if it is completely voluntary. Yea.

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Speaker 2: And most of our dealers are also family owned companies

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Speaker 2: like we are, and they want to run their own

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Speaker 2: companies the way they want their companies to be run.

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Speaker 1: Sure, fair enough. Do you know the name James Dyson

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Speaker 1: as an hair dryers, right, so I'm interviewing him? He said,

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Speaker 1: The only thing they can't make with a battery is

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Speaker 1: the hair dryer, because the battery needs to be small,

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Speaker 1: needs to be like weight enough, and it needs to

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Speaker 1: produce enough power to be a hair dry He can't

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Speaker 1: crack it. I'm in your store the other day. You're

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Speaker 1: making a chainsaw, so that blows me. I've thought you'd

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Speaker 1: never be able to make a battery powered chainsaw, and

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Speaker 1: yet you can.

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Speaker 2: Well, apparently, yeah, we can, and we will, and the

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Speaker 2: batteries are growing ever more powerful. So yes, right now

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Speaker 2: we have I think chainsaws that'd run up to three

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Speaker 2: and a half killer whites, which is already quite something.

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Speaker 2: But in the future we will be able to even

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Speaker 2: produce is high powered professional chances with the batteries that

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Speaker 2: are that are in the pipeline.

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Speaker 1: Are you on the same trajectory as car companies broadly

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Speaker 1: in the idea that you need smaller, lighter, more powerful,

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Speaker 1: and the recharge needs to be something where people go,

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Speaker 1: that's the answer.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's the answer. And what we can do and

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Speaker 2: the cars cannot is we can keep on running because

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Speaker 2: we swap batteries. Yeah, And so all you need is

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Speaker 2: is a large battery and a fast charger and two

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Speaker 2: batteries to get you through the day, because once you

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Speaker 2: use one battery and the other one gets charged, and.

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Speaker 1: So you're often running. Yeah, when you you worked for Mercedes,

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Speaker 1: didn't you. Yes, this is completely off the subject, very engineer,

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Speaker 1: because because I'm because I'm a car freak, it seemed

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Speaker 1: to me that you were in the development of a

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Speaker 1: twelve cylinder engine. Yes, that was the twelve Was is

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Speaker 1: that the one?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, that was.

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Speaker 1: That was the very.

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Speaker 2: First twelve cylinders. It is dead for.

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Speaker 1: It was not just a twelve the Mercedes. For people

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Speaker 1: listening to this thinking I've gone nuts, the Mercedes twelve

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Speaker 1: cylinder was the twelve cylinder engine. Yes, so you were

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Speaker 1: part of the development of that engine.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the greatest contributions to modern motoring. Thank you,

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Speaker 1: in the history of modern motoring.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Everybody wanted a V twelve Mercedes.

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Speaker 2: Engine and it was a lot of fun doing it.

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Speaker 1: Why'd you even make chainsaws?

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Speaker 2: I would have because I'm I'm a still What do

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Speaker 2: you do?

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Speaker 1: What do you do? Listen, enjoy your time in the country.

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Speaker 1: I know it's not long, but congratulations on all your success.

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Speaker 2: You nice having me, Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Nice to talk to you, doctor Nicholas Still.

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Speaker 2: For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 2: the podcast on iHeartRadio