IT GAVE US A CHANCE TO BE CHALLENGED BY PEOPLE FROM THE OUTSIDE.

Both Beaudoin and his son Pierre led the recreational product division before it was sold.

As Moore puts it, regarding the family’s role: “I don’t think they’ve been hands-on in the way they were with Bombardier. At BRP, they are letting other people run the show and they are being patient because they really understand the business. Certainly Pierre and Laurent have a good sense of what it takes.”

The market results have

Bombardier shares, meanwhile, have plunged nearly 49 per cent during the same time period. The company is in the midst of a five-year turnaround plan under the leadership of Alain Bellemare, who joined in February 2015. That plan showed hints of bearing fruit on Friday, when Bombardier beat earnings expectations and posted a surprise adjusted profit.

According to Bloomberg, as of late July, BRP had a market cap of about $4 billion while Bombardier sits at $5.7 billion; for a brief spell in 2015, BRP was the more valuable entity.

Also crucial to BRP’s success has been a focus on product development and innovation, and creating significant efficiencies in the manufacturing process.

Not far from Boisjoli’s office, as the sun glares outside on a warm July day, workers inside the BRP factory are busy building snowmobiles for the coming winter season. Sparks fly from robotic welding machines, while employees zip around aisles, bringing supplies to various production stations. The assembly line, based on the Toyota Production System model, hums as white SkiDoos are pumped off one-byone and prepared for packaging.

Since being spun out, BRP has expanded from producing snowmobiles and personal watercraft to an all-season recreational company featuring a sixproduct line that includes outboard engines, Rotax engines, off-road and onroad vehicles. Its Ski-Doo, Lynx and Sea-Doo lines are the top brands in their markets, with revenues reaching about $1.5 billion last year. Its most successful product is its year-round line, featuring the three-wheeled Spyder, side-by-side vehicles and ATVs, which brought in more than $1.6 billion last year.

“The introduction of new models into segments that they previously didn’t serve, particularly in the side-byside space, and fairly aggressively adding to their lineup in those segments has been a big driver of their success in that they’ve been able to gain market share,” said Cameron Doerksen, an analyst with National Bank Financial.

Tim Conder, an analyst with Wells Fargo Securities, said in a note to clients that