Everyone in our industry knows that these continue to be challenging times for all of our companies. What to do?

First, we realize that this situation was not brought on by our company or our industry. The current business conditions started in the financial sector and the general economy. That is where the first steps toward recovery must be made. And they are. There is now a wealth of government programs aimed at saving jobs, stabilizing the financial sector, and stimulating the world economy. These programs take different forms around the world, but they consistently aim at these 3 targets. They are massive in scale, and even sometimes coordinated among the world’s governments and financial institutions.

Within the past 3 months we have seen a considerable number of indicators that show these programs are having a positive effect in the financial and general economy – and this is encouraging. Although we are clearly making progress, it is also clear that the current business climate is cautious, and that the recovery in the financial and general economies will likely occur in a series of fits and starts over some longer period of time.

So if this is the profile of our general economy, what about our Construction Materials industry? I for one am convinced our industry has a bright future – very bright. On a macro trend level, population growth, demographic trends, and the need for infrastructure (either new or rebuilt) will continue to drive demand for our products around the world. Further, infrastructure is a primary target of the world’s investment and stimulus programs because infrastructure creates immediate jobs and improves long-term efficiency.

So if this is the profile for our Construction Materials industry, what is the way forward for us at Command Alkon?

Like our industry, our company revenues are down. Some markets are down more than others. The US, UK, and Spain have been among the hardest hit economies and although the strongest companies continue to invest in modernization programs, our business has been affected right along with the rest of the industry. On a positive note, we have been able to expand our business in Latin America, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand.

Another positive note is that we have a wide variety of products that appeal to different segments of our market. Sales of our JWS Apex products continue at high levels and reflect the relative health of the aggregate related businesses that will likely be the early recipient of infrastructure monies. COMMANDqc and COMMANDoptimize are new innovations in the concrete industry and will likely set record sales levels in 2009 and beyond.

From a financial perspective we closely watch our costs so that we can continue to invest in the industry. These ongoing product investments include Apex, COMMANDqc, COMMANDbatch, COMMANDconcrete, COMMANDtrack, COMMANDperformance, COMMANDcommerce, COMMANDoptimize and our ERP interfaces. We are fortunate to be in a diversified position that has allowed us to continue to make these significant investments.

We cannot control the circumstances of the general economy. But it is clear that our industry is very well positioned to help lead the world economy out of the recession. At Command Alkon, we have chosen to focus on the things we do control – our costs, our investment in products to help our customers, and working together to help customers. We are confident that these investments in widespread products and markets will put us in a stronger position for the recovery.

These are challenging times. Command Alkon is a strong partner in these challenging times.

Phil

pramsey@commandalkon.com