Dear colleagues,
I have now visited even more Mauser locations and have had the great opportunity to get to know more and more colleagues. The time I have spent with our operators, front line leaders, and plant managers is simply, irreplaceable. It will take time to cover our vast international footprint, but I am excited to visit each and every one of our facilities.
Observations
As I dive into the ins and outs of our everyday operations, I have observed that we have an enormous number of on-going projects in every corner of the business. From growing sales, executing on good value add capital projects, aligning our organizational structures, refining and introducing new management systems and platforms, expanding the accuracy of our reporting, and consolidating our operational footprint, we all are challenged to get the job done. There is so much to do and your efforts in helping us achieve the benefits from these actions are really appreciated.
Headwinds
As a Company, we are faced with headwinds that are somewhat out of our control: most recently resin costs are going up because of strong supply and demand dynamics and we expect steel costs to increase as well; our customers are struggling to provide us with mid to long term business outlooks due to uncertainty in their businesses; our competitors are aggressively pursuing pricing actions and of course, the COVID pandemic has added to the cost and complexity of the business.
Our competitors, however; are faced with the same headwinds and to the extent we manage through these headwinds better than they do, we can gain a competitive advantage. We are working hard to win new customers both in North America and Internationally, we are executing our Mauser Platform Optimization projects, and we continue to adjust our capacity to known volumes.
Executing on our priorities
It is my job to make sure that we don’t stretch our energy over too many priorities, and that we focus on the key essential projects. That being said, we are in the middle of initiating an indirect procurement initiative that has tremendous positive financial implications for the future of Mauser Packaging Solutions. This project, in partnership with IBM, aims to use the size of both organizations to save a substantial amount of money and will require all levels of the organization to stand behind it – despite, the change management that will come with it. You will be hearing more about this in the coming weeks, but thanks in advance for supporting this effort aggressively.
I will be presenting a plan to our Board of Directors next month that will focus on fewer priorities but ensures that those priorities we execute on are executed well. This plan will not involve short term, or short-sighted measures, but will lay out concrete actions that will be the foundation of the long-term success of the Company. Expect to hear more details about this plan following the Board Meeting.
Additionally, I am working on a handful of internal communications that will be delivered in the form of audio messages so that you can hear directly from me, get to know me and my leadership style, and receive a clearer picture for our future.
I am extremely proud of the people that surround me, all who play a critical role in our success. Thanks to your support, we continue to grow and to deliver on our milestones.
Please keep yourself, and your families, safe by practicing social distancing and adhering to all COVID guidelines.
Mark Burgess
President and CEO