Dear Command Alkon Stakeholders,
I want to start by expressing my sincere gratitude to you as we celebrate the conclusion of a great fiscal year 2023. Completing my second year as CEO of Command Alkon, I've had the profound opportunity to engage with hundreds of customers and partners around the globe. The common themes I have heard are that Command Alkon plays a key role in the Heavy Building Materials (HBM) industry and that the thousands of Ready Mix and Concrete Products, Aggregate, and Asphalt companies that use our products every day to run their business rely on us to be a true partner in their success.
In my customer visits, I have seen firsthand the importance that our products play in helping our customers achieve their profitability, quality, and customer service goals for their operations. Your insights, particularly about the need for a partnership-driven approach, have not only been heard, but are actively shaping our innovation and service strategies. I am humbled to serve the 600+ employees here at Command Alkon who serve this global industry, including the over fifty new employees who have chosen to join us in this journey in the last twelve months. As we prepare for a new year, I want to provide you with a quick update on the exciting steps we are taking to help you be successful now and in the future.
Corporate Focus
We announced last October at our ELEVATE User Conference our recommitment to our core markets – Ready Mix and Concrete Products, Aggregates, and Asphalt. This focus allows us to apply all of our resources in innovating and serving customers of all sizes and types in the HBM industry. We are also committed to a focused, narrower set of products for these core markets. We plan to do fewer things and do them really well. We are doubling down to ensure that we provide the leading Production & QC, Dispatching, Trucking, and Office systems. Our emphasis is on creating the next generation of this select range of products and ensuring excellence in each one. Our 'API-First' approach enhances integration capabilities, allowing our systems to seamlessly interact with other technologies in your existing infrastructure.
Product Innovation
Our customers asked that we innovate and deliver modern, forward-looking technology to evolve the industry – and we listened! We started this journey in earnest in early 2022 when we launched our new cloud-based Dispatch product for Ready Mix producers. We aren’t just bringing yesterday’s technology to the cloud. We have spent hundreds of hours with customers rethinking and redesigning a web and mobile Dispatch for the 21st century workforce. We are focused on a solution that is easier to install, easier to use, and easier to train people on. I am excited to share that we have over 50 customers already running their operations with this new product, and we are planning for hundreds of customers to adopt cloud-based Dispatch over the next couple of years.
While this initial product was launched for our Ready Mix customers in North America, we are currently introducing the Spanish language version of the product in Latin America and will be expanding to our other global markets during 2024. We will also be bringing to market a purpose-designed solution for Aggregates and Asphalt customers in 2024. Another exciting innovation is our new Customer Portal product that allows our customers to create a branded mobile experience for their customers. Also, following several months of successful field-testing, our technology-leading Load Assurance (Slump) product, which assists with in-transit concrete quality and delivery profitability, will have a generally available offering for Air in early 2024. Last but not least, this month we launched a new, lighter version of our industry leading TrackIt solution. And all of these next-generation products work seamlessly together through a common cloud platform. We are innovating rapidly, and to help our customers stay informed, we are hosting regular webinars on our latest offerings. To make sure you are current with our technology, I encourage you to visit www.commandalkon.com and register for upcoming webinars.
Customer Service
To be the partner our customers expect us to be, we are laser focused on having best-in-class service. To accomplish that, we first hired a leader to guide us in that journey. Brett Bertz was recently named Chief Customer Officer. Brett brings a wealth of experience to Command Alkon and is leading our Customer Support, Implementation, and Customer Success Teams. He is also developing a robust new training program and has hired a Lean/Six Sigma expert to help us build scalable processes to serve our customers better and ensure a continuous-improvement culture. We are executing rapidly against a defined list of improvements for our customer service, but recent highlights include reinstating a “Plant Down” phone option for customers when they are in an emergency situation with production and conducting extensive surveying to make sure that support cases are being resolved to our customers’ satisfaction. I plan to share more about improvements and enhancements to our customer service throughout the year.
Conclusion
I cannot thank our employees, customers, and partners enough for your unwavering support and collaboration. We are excited and energized to be on our transformative journey, Command Alkon 3.0, with a customer-centric vision for success and innovation in the Heavy Building Materials industry. I am honored to be working alongside such dedicated individuals and serving our customers in this amazing industry.
Martin Willoughby
CEO, Command Alkon
