Transportation and Logistics
Hitting the brakes
How Joe McAleese made tough decisions at Bendix to keep the company in drive during the recession
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Cleveland | November 2009
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A few years ago, Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC was bought by a German company, and in that transaction, Joe McAleese, who serves as Bendix’s president and CEO, had to shift his company’s focus from a quarterly, profit-driven mentality to a long-term, double-digit revenue growth outlook. It changed the game for the business, which develops air brake charging and control systems for trucks, trailers, buses and tractors, and he was now focusing on things that he never focused on before.
As a result, business boomed, the company doubled its size between 2002 and 2006, and he was seeing a pipeline of more growth opportunities awaiting him. At the time, it was the biggest challenge he had faced, but it was exciting to see the company change and even more thrilling to see all of its potential. But then everything changed.
“Before the recession started, we started being impacted with the housing starts slowing down and declining,” McAleese says. “Our customers have been in a prolonged freight recession for three years, so they don’t have a need for trucks, so the truck companies don’t need to build trucks, so it’s been a difficult time for our industry.”
McAleese had to change the game — again — to adapt with both the industry and the economy.
“For us, the challenge is in how do you manage through that?” he says. “We’re used to managing through very big cycles. Our industry is normally very cyclical — we go about from the top of the cycle to the bottom of the cycle 50 percent. That’s normal for us. We’re used to dealing with that kind of cyclicality. This time it’s 75 percent. We’re not used to dealing with that. We’re not used to the aftermarket business slowing down at the same time.”
To keep the company moving forward during the tough time, McAleese and his team took a processed approach to changing Bendix by getting all of their options on the table, making the right decisions, communicating with employees and then moving forward.
