Get the pieces in place for change
In 1980, Allied’s business was at a domestic dead end. The industry was shrinking, and heavy manufacturing in general was getting
the cold shoulder from state and federal governments.
“In order to grow and prosper, we had to look beyond our border and into new markets,” Tabor says. “In business, you can’t
stand still. If you stand still, you go backward. What really helped
us was that the electric induction furnace, which was becoming
the major melting method for iron, copper and steel. That was
where our products were being used.
“It helped us to grow even though the market was shrinking on
us — we hit it just right.”
Confronted with less than dazzling numbers, Tabor knew something had to give — over time, if not right away — so he led a
change in focus.
“We knew we wanted to grow the domestic business, not only in foundry but also into big steel, big aluminum and also the industrial markets,” he says. “Another thing we wanted to do was go
international in the same areas. We wanted to begin making refractory shapes and wanted to add those to our product line. The other
thing, we wanted to hire the right people to support those efforts.
We did not have the people at the time to do the things we needed
to do in order to grow the business.”
So to grow domestic business, Tabor hired people familiar with
big steel, big aluminum and also industrial, which includes
cement, power and wood-burning markets. Basically, he hired
people who already understood where he was taking the company. Buying out several companies gave Allied a different line of
products for foundries as well as a line of products specifically for
aluminum, and an expansion at the Columbus plant gave them
product flexibility.
With an eye on going international, Allied brought on board a
specialist to concentrate on markets they’d never been in before.
An extravagance? No, an investment.
“In China — where do we put the plant? He did the market
research work, and we ended up in Tianjin,” Tabor says. “We’ve
never looked back, and we’re on the third expansion of the new
plant.”
After anticipating its foreign growth capabilities, the company
kept an open enough mind to put in a plant in China that handles
Asian customers, one in Holland that handles Europe, one in
Brownsville that handles Mexico and South America, and one in
South Africa that handles Africa.
The resulting worldwide wingspan brought customers from 85
countries around the globe.
Tabor says the importance of infusing new blood can’t be overlooked.
“You hire people; you try to locate them through contacts in the
industry,” he says. “You get to realize there are people out there we
could hire, many who had great talents and were not being adequately used at the company they were with. We were able to hire
the right people to get us into those businesses.”
Having a team on hand to take regular, planned, deliberate looks
at the company’s future path also has become an essential part of
Allied’s business plan. In order to fully anticipate Allied’s foreign
growth, Tabor had to have people who were specifically meant to
look beyond the company’s comfortable borders.
“There’s the problem of recognizing opportunities, so we have an
opportunity group,” he says. “We have a group of people who meet
and talk about various opportunities that present themselves to the
company and whether we have the wherewithal or the talent — the
people — to go after it. If we do, we usually go after it.”
The opportunity group includes the vice president of sales and
marketing, the vice president of corporate development, the vice
president of research and development, the manager of research,
the vice president of new business groups, and a few others.
They meet about every six weeks for a morning, and the length
of the meeting depends on how much they have to discuss and if
anything new has come up.
“We’ve become a very opportunistic company” Tabor says. “We have all these salesmen out in the field who see opportunities.
Maybe we should look at this — or not. If
you take off the blinders, there are more
opportunities than you realize over a period of years. We’ve gone from status quo to
a growth orientation.”
