From Harley-Davidson to stock car racing, Ruth Crowley tells Meg Shreve why merchandise matters

Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Nascar merchandise might seem like a man's world, but for 46-year-old Dubliner Ruth Crowley, the real challenge has been maintaining a high-quality brand image that continues to connect with its customers.

Last March, Crowley, the former vice-president and general merchandise manager for Harley-Davidson, was named president of Motorsports Authentics LLC, a North Carolina-based company that sells Nascar and other race car merchandise. Nascar is an acronym for the national association for stock car racing in the US

Earlier this month she addressed Irish manufacturers at the Achieving Performance and Excellence conference at Dublin Castle, sponsored by Enterprise Ireland and the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Co-operation.

Drawing upon her experience at Harley-Davidson, she told attendees that remaining competitive not only meant creating a brand image, but also building relationships with customers. At the heart of the 103-year-old motorcycle manufacturer was a relatable "human brand", she said.

People are "time starved" and have "higher expectations, especially from premium brands", Crowley added.

A successful company cannot lose track of its customers and their connection to the brand, said Crowley, who pointed out that good customer service was part of maintaining and building brand customer loyalty.

Crowley took a long route through the merchandise manufacturing industry. Wanting to study the structure of the retail industry she moved to the US in the late 1980s, the "centre of the retail universe", Ms Crowley said.

She started out working in an American department store, May Co and for smaller speciality stores, The Limited and Eddie Bauer. There, she said, she learned the basics, from buying merchandise to product design and displays to customer behaviour.

Crowley then moved into the tourism industry, working at the Host Marriott Group for 13 years, followed by a stint at Universal Studios. There she handled merchandise design, theme park development, store concepts and design brand integration, and worked on the openings of parks in Florida, Japan and "converted" and "revamped" parks in Spain and California.

In 2000, she moved to Harley-Davidson, working on the development of its fashionable and functional apparel, from helmets to baseball caps. Crowley described her time at Harley-Davidson a "great experience". She oversaw licensing, branding and distribution and worked with over 600 dealers and 1,200 stores worldwide to expand the business.

In her stint at the iconic motorcycle manufacturing group, she launched a children's line of Harley-Davidson apparel and pet products.

When she proposed the pet gear line, some people "thought I'd lost my marbles", she recalls with a laugh. But she knew she had something.

For many customers, the pet was an integral part of the family that came along on outings. So she came up with the idea of creating a line of pet products, such as dog collars, bandanas and T-shirts, that would appeal to the Harley-Davidson pet owner but still keep the integrity of the brand name?

It ended up becoming "one our most successful launches ever", she said.

It's not just her career that has been varied. Crowley's educational background includes spells at Trinity and UCD, a design internship with Anna Costello in Dublin, and an executive Master's course with Marriott at the University of Maryland.

She also took Master's courses at the University of Chicago's School of Business and taught at other US universities.

Despite her success, Crowley acknowledges there are still challenges facing women in the boardroom.

Barriers do exist in the business world, she said, but added that the key to her success had been working hard to gain credibility and trust to "eliminate those barriers".

"You have to be tough and tenacious. I'm not shy about articulating a different point of view that's based on fact," Crowley said.

And in today's market, she sees room for improvement. Most notably, companies should focus more on customer service from the top down.

On a recent business trip, she counted 17 instances of "horrible service" or where a company missed the opportunity to build a better customer relationship by providing better customer service.

Providing that superior customer service is a "dilemma in every single industry across the world", she said.

During her speech at the conference, she also emphasised the importance of "investing" in quality employees and said that companies should not look at the payroll as an expense but instead focus on keeping a low staff turnover.

For now, Crowley is focused on her newest venture as president of Motorsports Authentics.

In the US, sports car racing has risen in popularity to become the second most popular sport after American football, she said. It is Nascar's newfound fame she hopes to build on.

This means taking the five companies and 40 different brands that make up Motorsports and "integrate them into one culture" and create an "authentic product" that "celebrates the sport", she said.