John Deere Background

Buyers. As of 2013 Deere has 34% share of the exports of agricultural equipment. Buyers tend to go with a known brand name. Deere has been around 1837 and have been known for their excellent quality farm equipment. Since the buyers are a small group of farmers, government and big corporations, the buyers cannot influence the prices of the equipment. Deere is known for not repossessing farm equipment when there is a down turn, like the depression. This does instill the brand into the buyers. They established operations in strategic countries to keep the prices down and have product ready when it is needed.

The Ford Motor Company is an automotive manufacturer that was started in the late 1900’s. Many people have run the Ford Motor Company but the founder Henry Ford, he was unlike any other. Henry Ford’s imagination was unlike any other and his brain could come up with some of the greatest things. Until the day Mr. Ford died he created and succeeded in the automotive world and never failed to give to America.

In 1837 John Deere came to be what it is today and is 180 years old this year. John Deere has withstood the test of time and has been advancing. Farming technology has been advancing through the years and continues to advance. Now we are going to drive the tractor right into learning about GPS.

Deere shows a stable growth also in difficult market conditions, which indicates that it is a well managed and well positioned company.

One of the five oldest companies in the United States, Deere and Company is the world's largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment and a major U.S. producer of construction, forestry, and lawn equipment. The

John Deere was born in Rutland, Vermont on February 7, 1804. When John was 17 he apprenticed himself to a black smith for 4 years. After that he immediately went into the blacksmithing business. John borrowed money to build his own blacksmith shop. Tragically, his shop was destroyed by fire not only once, but two times. John could not pay off his debt and facing bankruptcy, he made the decision to head west where he could find work, and be able to pay off his debt (Nortrax).

This document provides an in depth company analysis of Deere & Company (DE). In the first segment of the analysis, an overview of John Deere’s history, product and service offerings, corporate strategy, and a synopsis of the heavy equipment production industry will be evaluated. The second segment includes a financial overview and analysis of the three most recent

John Deere is an iconic one hundred and seventy-seven year old company and maker of agricultural machinery headquartered in Moline, Illinois. What started as a small business operation has sprung into a multibillion-dollar global operation. In 2013 alone, the company boasted sales of $37.80 billion. Founded in 1837 by a blacksmith, the company originally only built plows, and did not assemble their first tractor until they purchased a small tractor company, Waterloo Boy, in 1918. Now the green and yellow machinery is recognized around the world.

The construction and forestry segment manufacturers and distributes an expansive line of machines and service parts used in a variety of industries. Although this market segment has less of an impact on their financial performance than agriculture and turf, Deere is expecting revenue to increase about 8% in 2013. This increased revenue will primarily come from improved economic conditions in the U.S. Finally, the financial services segment mainly derives its revenue from their dealer network and the finance of customer purchases is expected to see improvement. As you can see from the chart below, agriculture and turf account for nearly 77% of the companies operating profit and grew over 13.5% in 2012 as compared to 2011. While financial services experienced a decrease in overall operating profit as compared to 2011, it remained second ahead of construction and forestry contributing $712 million in operating profit to the company.

In 1976, Deere & Company was among the world’s leaders of farm and industrial equipment. The majority of Deere’s success was attributed to the light crawler tractor market with over 50% market share. It was at that time Deere earned a reputation for manufacturing reliable small tractor equipment. Deere evolved into producing and manufacturing the larger industrial equipment in phases, beginning in small forestry operations. As farmers and smaller operators sought to diversify their businesses, Deere offered newly innovative attachments and crawlers, and was now seeking to integrate into the large tractor market in phase five. In this phase, Deere introduced the JD750 bulldozer, a heavy contracting

John Deere & Company manufactures and distributes agriculture equipment as well as a broad range of construction and forestry equipment. The company is partnered with FedEx in order to maintain the logistics flow involved with the company’s transactions. FedEx is responsible for providing outsourced transportation services to 11 Deere facilities across the US and Canada. The 11 Deere facilities have different service agreements with FedEx in terms of cost and service depending on the type of business unit.

Ford Motor Company is an American automobile manufacturer founded and headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan but incorporated in the state of Delaware. The company was started by Henry Ford in 1903 and is historically famous for the creation and implementation of the assembly line in manufacturing processes. Ford’s mission is to produce and sell automobiles – cars, trucks, SUVs, etc – from the ones initially designed and engineered by Henry Ford all the way through the newer versions created in the last few years. (Profitable Growth for All, 2012)

John Deere organizational structure is methodical and unified. The above chart does not totally focus on the lengths of the structure but these are the heads of each division. John Deere has a total of 8 divisions which are agricultural, constructions, turf, forestry, financial services, power systems, parts services, and intelligent solutions. Each division has the ability to concentrate on their specific needs and develop the next best thing for John Deere. The perfect example is if the agricultural team could develop their tractors to either widen or shrink the space between the wheels by pushing a button.

Although the organization survived the financial downturn of 2008 & 2009 in the home building and selling market to which it is closely tied, it stayed true to the foundations of the parent company, John Deere who has utilized a very conservative approach to growth over the years. Here again with the infusion of new capital and a mission to grow the company might pull away from its core and begin to feel that success is a guaranteed outcome.

Massey’s farm machinery line consists of tractors, several harvesters and other agricultural equipment. The industrial machinery line consists mostly of several industrial tractors. Diesel engines were produced in Coventry, England by the Perkins Engines group. Perkins engines were used in Massey-Ferguson’s