Caterpillar Conquers Customer Concerns

Teichert Construction, California's oldest contractor, was a key customer for Caterpillar equipment. In 2003, Ken Power met Steve Mitchell, vice president of Teichert, who challenged him to provide a compelling business reason to change.

Prior to this meeting, Power had analyzed market share data and identified an opportunity for improvement in the company's relationship with Teichert. Although Cat enjoyed high market share with Teichert, they did not purchase any yellow, black, and red hydraulic excavators from them.

Power met Steve Mitchell on a fishing trip during which they discussed various topics before eventually talking about excavators. It turned out that Teichert's reason for not choosing Caterpillar excavators was fundamentally a performance and cost-per-ton issue. They needed machines with a narrower boom profile to move less material in deep trenching work.

Power realized that this problem had been created by Caterpillar's design choices, which prioritized durability over efficiency. After understanding the issue, Power worked to convince engineering to redesign the excavators and manufacturing to tool up for the change.

The new regional narrow front option proved itself regionally and was eventually included in the product specifications as the standard front. With this solution, Teichert began considering Caterpillar's hydraulic excavators and eventually chose them. This change did not occur immediately but took time and a trust-building process.