Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Josh Jepsen: Yes. One thing to add, Jamie. Those two things Brent mentioned are critical. And then on top of that, it’s been really, really tough on how we leverage technology into both earthmoving and road building as well as forestry because as with most industries, there is €“ there are significant labor challenges. So, the ability to automate jobs and bring technology to make jobs safer and easier to do is really, really important. So, you will see us leverage technology there. You would be thoughtful in surgical and how we pull things over from PPA, precision ag, for example, and we think that will €“ that is another structural component as we go forward. Thanks Jamie.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mircea Dobre with Baird. Go ahead please. Your line is open.

Mircea Dobre: Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to ask a backlog question, if I may. So, you came into the year with a little better than $14 billion worth of backlog in your Ag segment. And I am sort of curious in your planning assumptions for 2023, do you expect to start working down some of this backlog? And I guess there are two things here. Are you structurally running now with higher levels of backlog or is this something that can €“ we can actually start to see come down this year? And what are sort of the implications to your production in 2024, given how strong the backlog was to begin with?

Brent Norwood: Hey Mircea, with respect to our backlog, I think there is a couple of things to discuss there. The level of the backlog that has grown relative to history, some of that’s just coming from increased valuation of our €“ of the price point of our machines, right. So, if you compare on an absolute basis, that’s certainly going to look higher. Certainly, the last couple of years, order books have run further than that they have had during prior years. And I think that reflects the environment that we are in where demand is far exceeding supply. Certainly, if we get back to a more normalized supply and demand environment, that can moderate a little bit. But with respect to 2024, it still remains €“ it’s still a little early, I think to have a perspective in terms of how far those order books are going to run ahead of the year.

What I would tell you though is based on where we are at right now, we expect to have little field inventory by the end of the year. And many of our dealers are fully expecting that some products are going to remain on allocation in 2024. So again, that’s what we see today. But again, we will let this season play out. We will let this crop play out before we have a fully firm view on what that backlog looks like for next year.

Josh Jepsen: Hey Mircea, it’s Josh. Maybe a couple of things to add. Some of this too is impacted by the supply chain and what is the status of the supply chain and the ability to get material to produce, which impacts how far out we are ordered. I think the €“ that’s really, really critical. I think the other component is thinking about where are we at from a field inventory perspective, where a dealer is at. This year, we have, by and large, been serving retail customers. So, we have not been building stock for dealer inventory. So, I think that’s an important opportunity that dealers would like to have a little more inventory that’s not just going to retail as we look forward in €˜24. Thanks Mircea.

Operator: Our next question will come from Tami Zakaria with JPMorgan. Go ahead please. Your line is open.

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