Polaris Industries Inc. announced that, effective immediately, it is merging its Polaris sales, sales operations, service, corporate marketing and interactive team into a unified global customer excellence team led by Tim Larson, vice president of Global Customer Excellence. The company also announced that Bill Fisher, vice president and chief information officer, will retire from the company at the end of 2014, necessitating leadership transitions within the company's Information Services organization. This sales and marketing consolidation frees Mike Jonikas from those responsibilities, allowing him to focus his efforts on growing Polaris' Snowmobile business unit and launching the company's Slingshot product line, debuting in 2014.

Jonikas will assume the title of vice president, Snow and Slingshot. Concurrent to these organizational changes, the company began the succession strategy for Fisher January 1, 2014, when Matt Emmerich assumed the role as CIO. As CIO, Emmerich will report to President and Chief Operating Officer Bennett Morgan and be responsible for all IT-related operational and infrastructure support activities across the global enterprise.

Fisher will work through 2014 supporting the transition within the Information Services organization. He will also continue to spearhead the Interactive and Rider X Initiatives in 2014, while serving as integration leader for the recent Primordial acquisition. Emmerich has been with the company since 2004.

He was most recently a director of applications.