How to Envision Your Organization’s Future
Since you became CEO of auto-parts manufacturer Linamar in 2002, it has been transformed into a $7.6 billion diversified global manufacturer of highly-engineered products powering vehicles, motion, work and lives. Can you talk a bit about the company’s transformation?
We started down the road of globalizing and diversifying our company close to 20 years ago. We didn’t want to move forward with all of our eggs in the auto-parts basket, so the goal was to find new markets to put our capabilities around metallic processing and lean manufacturing to good use. I’m pleased to report that while we have expanded, we have continued to significantly grow our automotive business. The idea was not to de-emphasize that at all. It was to add additional avenues to grow the company.
You are the only company I’ve heard of that has a 100-year plan in place. Please explain the thinking behind that.
It is indicative of our dedicated focus on the long term. Our goal is to create a company that will continue to grow and be successful over many, many years — not just this quarter or five years from now. We created the 100-year plan because we started
