Meet Mahesh Narang, Oshkosh’s new executive vice president and president of the Access segment (which includes JLG and Jerr-Dan businesses), a position he’s held since November 2023.
Mr. Narang, an accomplished global leader who transitioned into the company from a different industry, brings a fresh perspective to JLG. He sees numerous opportunities for growth, including growing JLG’s leadership development and culture programs and taking JLG from a multinational business to a global company.
Thank you for talking with us, and welcome to the JLG family!
JLG is an iconic brand and a great company, and I am delighted to work alongside such a talented team and reputable brand in the access industry.
As you have settled into your role in the company, you mentioned a couple of growth areas to focus on. Let’s discuss those. What opportunities do you see for growing JLG’s leadership development and culture?
I see amazing talent at JLG waiting to be unleashed with the right coaching and opportunities. Our goal as leaders is to harness this potential and make amazing leaders from our amazing talent. Great leaders build great companies, and I see the potential in our teams to do just that, as we provide them with opportunities and coaching through senior leaders to grow into bigger roles.
Second, being part of the Oshkosh family, we have a strong culture of being a “People First” company. This is a real differentiator and sets us apart in creating a collaborative team culture, especially as we grow internationally. Our culture helps us recognize different perspectives and work as one team to expand globally.
Lastly, the world is changing rapidly, and maintaining a blend of expertise, new skills and viewpoints from outside our industry, along with an unparalleled commitment to execute and win in the market through our internal teams, is critical to our long-term success.
In summary, I personally, along with my leadership team, view leadership and talent development as a personal goal to develop the best leaders to build a great JLG.
You mention that JLG's go-to-market approach is multinational and needs to be transformed to be more global. Please explain.
Let me start by explaining what I mean by multinational to global. Today, as a U.S. multinational company, we tend to develop a product for our key market and try to sell it wherever possible. To grow our market share in other markets, we need to regionalize our products to what customers in each region want and invest in regional manufacturing and engineering to improve responsiveness. That is what will make us a global company that addresses the unique needs of the global markets we compete in.
Expanding the narrative from a multinational business to a truly global one is a significant growth opportunity for JLG. We have started on our journey and are focused on incorporating the Hinowa and AUSA businesses into JLG and optimizing our regional manufacturing and supply chain strategies.
In the longer term, we will focus on producing global platforms with regional customizations. As the access industry leader, we must deliver products and services that match regional demand and local requirements.
What must JLG do for its regional initiatives to be successful?
In my first few months on the job, I've traveled around the globe, listening to what our leadership, team members, customers and partners say. Now more than ever, we all recognize how each region we serve operates differently. For example, what works in the U.S. doesn't work in the Middle East or Asia, and Europe is unique in other ways with many micro markets. At the same time, the need for safe, reliable access equipment in the rest of the world is growing so quickly that we must create ways to keep pace.
We need to primarily focus on 1) the right product at the right cost and 2) responsiveness and lead time, both tailored to our markets.
We will focus on regional tailoring to develop the right products at the right cost. Platforms are global, but customizations can be regional. We need to prioritize work with each region to determine their customers’ needs and offer purpose-built products tailored to local conditions.
To improve responsiveness and lead time, we must empower local leaders, invest in lead time or have the right inventory closer to the customer, and finally, on regional markets to optimize our supply chain costs, including the impact of regulations. We are fortunate to have great talent globally and our acquisitions are now part of our network. We are in the process of optimizing our supply chain to be more responsive to our customers.
We are committed to building ecosystems around our products and services to get them into different markets at the right time, places and price points. We are laying the foundations for these initiatives' future right now.
As a follow-up to your comment about building an ecosystem to support our customers, how do the Hinowa and AUSA acquisitions play into this strategy?
As we look at building our global and regional ecosystems, growing our presence through acquisitions enables us to offer a more diverse range of products, like adding dumpers and forklifts to our portfolio, to solve our customers’ needs and the jobs to be done.
The Hinowa and AUSA acquisitions help JLG expand its opportunities to work with customers across our core and adjacent markets and applications, including construction, material handling, agriculture, landscape and specialty equipment.
Changing gears here, tell us more about your journey to JLG.
I was born and raised in India. I have a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Mumbai, and I hold a Master's degree in Business Administration and a Master's degree in Engineering Management from Northwestern University. Before joining JLG, I had been at Cummins Inc. since 2002, holding various positions in different functional areas. I ultimately was responsible for the strategic direction and led all operational aspects of the company’s global Components business.
I've lived in India, South Africa, England and the U.S. My family and I recently moved from Indiana to Maryland, and we’re excited to be a part of this growing JLG family.
Thank you for sharing your insights with us. We appreciate the opportunity to get to know you better, and we look forward to hearing more from you in the future!
Read more about Mr. Narang’s transition to JLG at JLG Announces Leadership Changes. For more insights from JLG’s leadership and product experts, visit #DirectAccess.
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