MTD Mid-Year Q&A: What’s Next for Radar

Omnisource is accelerating investment in its Radar brand, says CEO G.S. Sareen, who provides a preview of what’s next in this MTD exclusive.

MTD: Can you bring us up to speed on Omnisource’s business in the U.S. so far in 2025? What have some of the company's accomplishments and challenges been?

Sareen: Let's start with the basics. Let’s assume there are no geopolitical issues. My vision, dream, desire and ambition is to build a brand that isn’t dependent on the manufacturing facility. And there are various versions of that. There is a private brand where a manufacturer has decided to make their own pattern and so they put a name on the sidewall. The second is when somebody decides to invest in a new design and that becomes a private brand. What we are doing – how we have morphed over a period of time – is more than that. It's not just the (tire’s) optical design. It’s the (tire’s) compound, construction and profile. And every year, there are more changes being made to add more strength in this direction. The next step is to ensure quality control is better than what’s out there. How do you do that? You benchmark it against quality products. A full-blown technical R&D team needs to take shape.

The world is constantly evolving. There are new things constantly coming into play. This is where we can differentiate. So far, our (manufacturing) agility was only associated with moving mold from Manufacturer A to Manufacturer B as the situation changed. I’m talking about a very different agility now, which is development-based. The whole (idea) of ‘premium accessibility’ - a phrase we coined and launched – is not just a word. What is a premium brand? What is the definition of a premium brand? Everybody has their own definition. My definition of premium is ‘best in its class.’ We would like to test and benchmark ourselves against those (top) products constantly, which again, is a constantly evolving exercise.

Our business is growing at a healthy pace, despite the weaknesses in the market in both the U.S. and Europe and the geopolitical situation. The markets are not robust. In spite of that, we are trying to grow very aggressively. Last year, we launched an associated dealer program, Radar RED (Radar Elite Dealer), and we are driving focus very aggressively on securing retail accounts. My relationship has always been with large wholesalers...but we need to get closer to the market. How do you get closer to the market? We aren’t bypassing our distributors. We launched the program in full cooperation with our distributors. We need to have a face behind the name. We are loading up resources in the market... and not just in the U.S. We’ve launched this globally. We have this working in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, the U.K., Australia – a bunch of countries all over the world. And this is what’s fueling our growth. We’re trying to educate the retailer about our product. The wholesaler definitely (still) plays a very vital role in the chain. He's definitely (delivering) huge value. But that direct communication (to retailers) is now happening. And I think it's happening at the right time.

MTD: Will the Trump tariffs have an impact on your product sourcing and/or manufacturing footprint or strategy? If so, in what ways?

Sareen: Let's not call it ‘the Trump strategy.’ Let’s call it ‘the-shrinking-of-the-supply-chain strategy.’ Whether you do the right thing for the wrong reason or the other way around, the strategy is that the markets and products should be close. If supply chains are spread out, there are bound to be issues. Supply chains have to come closer to the market. Our entire business philosophy is that.

MTD: Do you foresee possibly establishing manufacturing in the U.S. at some point?

Sareen: I get this question at least once a month from banks, customers, manufacturing partners – everybody. We have the capability of selling and also producing. But the conversation we have is, ‘Do we need to do it?’ Will Uber ever have its own fleet of cars? Will Airbnb have its own chain of hotels? Or should we continue with our philosophy? There’s huge (tire) overcapacity in the world. Do we want to contribute to that? Putting a factory in the U.S. would have a short-term benefit. But today, there’s massive overcapacity. Canda has overcapacity. Mexico has overcapacity. It doesn’t make logical sense to add to it.

Intelligence lies in sensibly utilizing overcapacity. Should we invest $500 million in building a manufacturing facility or invest half of that in an R&D/testing facility? Right now, we are in the process of putting something together. It's going to be a very interesting project, purely for control and (product) testing ... putting in resources and really organizing the testing side of things in a really robust way.

MTD: Last year when we talked, you mentioned there is a timeline for Omnisource to start building tires in Europe. How is that project coming along? Is it still on-track?

Sareen: We've started building (tires in Europe) and are in fact doubling our capacity. We have one manufacturing (plant) and we’ve signed another one. We were at 14 or 15 manufacturing locations in 2024, worldwide. As of 2025, the plan is to take it to 25... to definitely extend the footprint and get as close to the market as we possibly can. Supply chains need to be closer to the market.

MTD: Omnisource continues to build its Radar sales and support team in the U.S. Why is this important for both the company and its customers?

Sareen: You have to get close to the customer. You have to put the face behind the name and the name behind the brand. We are adding one or two salespersons per month and we plan to build a very aggressive ground sales team in the U.S.

MTD: What can we expect to see from Omnisource during the rest of the year?

Sareen: More new designs, more announcements on testing and benchmarking, very aggressively driving the price/performance advantage...we are opening new warehouses to support our wholesalers, we are adding more products. You can expect newer designs that are not just beautiful tread patterns. We’ll be launching new products in the performance category... in all-season, all-weather. Across all categories, we’ll bring in new products during the rest of 2025 and into 2026, which will be buttressed further by beefed-up testing capabilities that we are right now in the process of setting up. You have to improve. You have to be better than you were yesterday. We're not slowing down.