Mack remains focused and bullish about 2017 despite its concerns over what it calls ‘bureaucratic mismanagement’ on behalf of the Trump administration.
Mack executives, led by Mack President Dennis Slagle, recently pointed out to reporters solid performances in critical areas like inventory reduction, service (with improved uptime), mDRIVE success and used truck sales.
Business may get even better if President Trump does his part to improve key U.S. policies, according to Slagle, who’s also an executive vice-president at Volvo Group, Mack’s parent company.
“We’re hoping to get through the mismanagement he’s done with the bureaucracy, to get back on the agenda that we think can be helpful to the market, things like infrastructure, deregulation and overall business-friendly policies may not cause the boom we’re all hoping for but it will certainly keep us all on a good track,” Slagle told reporters late last week in Charleston, S.C. during Mack’s “Born to Haul” press event.
Slagle said Mack has been enjoying quite a bit of momentum in the first quarter during what he calls a more organized market. As Slagle began talking with reporters, inventory reduction ranked at the top of his list.
“We like everyone else were caught with too-high inventories. The peak in the industry was October 2015. I think everybody in the industry, including Mack, has been successful in reducing that inventory down to—let’s call it—a healthy level,” said Slagle.
“It’s good because it means the market was there. It wasn’t that people weren’t buying—they weren’t buying as much—but it was good enough to get the inventories down to safe levels. Again, emphasizing that virtually all of that inventory problem was in highway.
