By Gregg Wartgow, Special to AEM --
Giorgio Carera moved to Georgia 20 years ago to establish an Italian manufacturer’s U.S. distribution arm. The FAE brand had no name recognition at the time, but Carera believed in the ingenuity of FAE’s equipment. He also had a vision for how FAE could ultimately assume a market-leading position in the U.S. market.
“Our vision has always been to focus on a niche market where we’d be viewed as the experts and innovators,” said Carera, CEO of AEM member company FAE USA in Flowery Branch, Ga.
Perhaps most importantly, Carera recognized the importance of learning how to do business “the American way,” which would be essential to earning a cusromer's trust. It wasn’t easy in the beginning, and it is by no means something he takes for granted yet today. But by sticking to Carera’s philosophy of having “boots on the ground,” the FAE USA team has helped the brand become a household name in land management equipment.
Starting From Scratch
Headquartered in Fondo, Italy, FAE Group was founded in 1989 and employs roughly 500 people globally. Roughly 50 of those employees are at the FAE USA distribution center in Georgia. It was a different story back in 2005, however.
“We basically started from scratch when I arrived here,” Carera said. He and two employees initially rented a small warehouse. Carera personally had to “wear every hat” imaginable. He regularly visited dealers with a trailer full of equipment to try and convince them to begin selling that equipment.
“I didn’t get much sleep back then,” Carera said. “But it was fun, exciting, and extremely motivating. Things started to take off once we had a core dealer base in place.”
Establishing that dealer base took some work. FAE’s unique land-clearing equipment, a mix of attachments and self-propelled units, was foreign to U.S. dealers back in 2005 — and not just because it was manufactured in Italy. “We had to convince dealers that our equipment offered a better method than what their customers had been doing,” Carera said.
The hardest part was convincing dealers that FAE was serious about the U.S. market, and that dealers could count on FAE USA for parts and overall product support. It helped that FAE USA had purchased some land to build their own facility. By the end of 2006, that brand new 35,000-square-foot facility in Flowery Branch was up and running.
As FAE USA grew and hired more employees, Carera knew it would become more difficult to consistently execute on the company vision. To continue living up to their dealers’ expectations, FAE USA needed to hire people who shared that vision — and then hang onto them.
“We don’t like revolving doors around here,” Carera emphasized.
Many of the company’s 40-plus employees have been with FAE USA for many years. Lee Smith has been there about the longest. Smith has worked alongside Carera for 18 of Carera’s 20 years. In fact, their business relationship goes back even further than that.
“I worked at one of the first dealerships FAE USA signed up,” Smith said. Then, when the ownership and strategic focus of that dealership started to change, Smith took a job in FAE USA’s parts department in 2007. Today he is a product application specialist.
“Coming here has worked out great for me because Giorgio has allowed me to work right beside him in growing FAE USA the right way,” Smith said. “The quality of the product has always been obvious. Furthermore, even though he is from Italy, Giorgio has always been focused on understanding the American business culture where service and support are extremely important. For example, he allowed modifications to our warranty policy to adapt it to the American market. Giorgio’s mindset has allowed the company to always keep moving in the right direction.”
According to Smith, that mindset is best described by one word: listening.
“We always have our ears open. That’s the number one mentality of our company, from ownership to management to the entire team.” -- Giorgio Carera
Dealers Help Drive Innovation
FAE USA has made a concerted effort to engage with dealers to identify ways of better serving them. Smith said this is a fitting example of how Carera’s vision for “having boots on the ground” comes to life.
“We always have our ears open,” Carera added. “That’s the number one mentality of our company, from ownership to management to the entire team.”
Thinking back 20 years ago, dealer engagement was more about educating on the FAE brand. Today, the focus is on gathering feedback so FAE USA can continually improve its products, training, and support.
“We’ve continually grown our employee base, especially our number of product specialists who work in their individual territories around the country,” Carera said. “This has allowed us to spend more time with our dealers, as well as our end-customers. We all work hand in hand to understand the market’s changing needs and how that relates to the equipment FAE manufactures in Italy.”
“Many of the changes we’ve made to our machines weren’t conceptualized in an engineering office,” Smith pointed out. That’s not to say the work of FAE engineers isn’t brilliant. “It’s just that when changes and improvements are driven by operators in the field, those changes can solve problems you never knew you had as a manufacturer,” Smith continued. “Running our business through our dealer partners has allowed us to receive that kind of feedback. Plus, our dealers feel like they are really part of what we’re doing as a company.”
A good example is a relatively simple change made to one of FAE USA’s best-selling machines, the UML/SSL mulcher attachment for skid steers and compact track loaders. That attachment originally had a hydraulically operated door to help control the material being ingested by the mulcher. The cylinder that opens/closes that door was exposed and susceptible to damage. Additionally, the hole the cylinder was recessed into would often fill up with mulching debris, causing excessive heat inside the head.
“After hearing this from our dealers, we decided that the door was doing more harm than good,” Smith said. “We shared the feedback with the engineers in Italy. They came up with a new drive unit and enclosed door-opening system that doesn’t have exposure to the elements. Now our customers can work for days without having to shut down and clean out the head every couple of hours. This change was really a game-changer for us. And it was something so simple that we probably would have never thought about it on our own.”
Continuing To Reach for a Higher Bar
FAE USA is keeping its ears open to well over 500 dealers today. The FAE product line has also continued to grow. In addition to the company’s core offering of land management attachments and self-propelled units, Carera says FAE has expanded aggressively into road construction. Additionally, the development of larger remote-controlled equipment, along with FAE’s unique Sonic technology for forestry mulchers, has further cemented FAE’s reputation as a leader in innovation.
To continue reaching the high bar set by its dealers and end-customers, FAE USA is now looking to expand its facility in the near future, or perhaps build a new facility across the street. An onsite dealer training center will be a big part of that upgrade. “Boots on the ground” will still be integral to how FAE USA does business “the American way,” but the distributor is also looking for ways to add value by supporting their dealers in even more efficient ways.
Carera is also looking to continue his membership with AEM, which is now at 16 years and running. Smith would like to join him, based on all the positive things he’s heard Carera talk about over the years.
“As a manufacturer in this industry, you need to be part of AEM,” Carera said. “The insights you gain are just incredible, and the knowledge and support they provide to companies like ours is invaluable.”
Carera has served on AEM’s Membership Committee for the past few years. He always enjoys those meetings because he gets to sit next to other CEOs and share ideas. Plus, as the head of an Italian brand in the U.S. market, being part of AEM has helped Carera learn how to “act like a local company,” as he puts it.
“Acting local” was a cornerstone of Giorgio Carera’s vision from the first moment he took over FAE USA in 2005. It wasn’t his first time spent in the U.S., however. He was a teenage exchange student many years ago.
“From those days on, I always felt like I wanted to run a company in the United States,” Carera said. “I’ve also always had a love for heavy equipment. I was born and raised around equipment. One grandfather was a farmer, and the other was a builder. My dad worked in sales and marketing for a tractor manufacturer. All of those things interconnect to where I am today.”
