Move forward
As Bendix moves forward, McAleese is now in the fourth phase of this process.
“That’s the first three parts, and then the fourth phase is, OK, when you do the range of things you have to do, you’re going to cause some harm to the relationship between you and the employees, so we have to recover that,” he says.
That, too, comes down to communication and consistency.
“We have to do that by telling people what we’re going to do and then going and doing it, so demonstrating that we’re still credible, we’re still the same people we were before,” he says. “When we were telling you what we were doing on the upside, we did it. We’re telling you on the downside, and we’re going to go back into growth mode.”
McAleese anxiously awaits the day when he can call people back and once again focus on doubling the business. But knowing when that time has arrived is hard, especially when every day you read headlines and hear stories along the lines of “Economy bottomed; recession end nears.” He says you have to look at leading indicators for your industry and then at your actual business.
“This is not an economic climate where you can forecast that, in six months, things are going to be better,” McAleese says. “You can’t work off that kind of forecast. You have to wait until you see it in the incoming orders from your customers.”
Once he sees that, then he’ll begin adding things back as the company can afford them and can once again focus on growth instead of cuts.
“Our business has a great future,” he says. “Our business is really down, but in the end, all of the goods and services move on trucks, so when the economy gets rolling again, the trucks will then get rolling again, and our business is going to go right back to the size it was before then. This is just kind of a reset phase to get our business positioned to go flourish again in the future.”
How to reach: Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC, (800) 247-2725 or www.bendix.com
