ROBERT LANE: PLOWS NEW GROUND

HEADNOTE

Deere's CEO concentrates on running smarter, faster and leaner to nurture global growth at the $21.9 billion, 168-year-old company.

"OUR PRODUCTS," boasts Deere & Co. Chairman and CEO Robert W. Lane,

"continue to stand alone in productivity, innovation and value." Lane, only the eighth chief executive in the company's 168-year history, is clearly committed to maintaining that tradition of excellence. But since becoming CEO in millennium year 2000, Lane, IW's CEO of the Year for 2005, has been equally committed to growing Moline, Ill.-based Deere into a business that is as great as he believes its products to be. In short, he's committed to running smarter, faster and leaner.

Such a strategic commitment could sound presumptuous, Lane acknowledges, Darticularly in the context of an iconic U.S. manufacturing company whose agricultural roots are long and deep, a company with enviable market shares, a stellar dealer network, a strong balance sheet and lots of loyal employees. But the reality, relates Lane, is that Deere, best known for its top-performing farm machinery with the distinctive yellow deer logo, was underperforming as a business when he became CEO. The company was "margin lean" and "asset heavy." Factories were running at a steady pace in a business that is cyclical, seasonal and variable. "This company did many great things, but it did things in an expensive way," he says. In Lane's judgment, Deere's overall performance was "O.K., but not great. Adequate might be the right word."